Poland village holiday event sure-fire to be illuminating

By Denise Dick

Poland Junior Women’s Club members made luminaries for the occasion.

POLAND — The village will light up with holiday spirit next month.

The Lighting of the Village begins at 6 p.m. next Saturday with Christmas carols at the town hall on Main Street.

Mayor Tim Sicafuse said this marks a first for the village, and he and the other organizers hope it becomes an annual holiday event.

“We want to make it a close-knit celebration,” Sicafuse said. “It doesn’t cost anything” for those who attend.

The event is sponsored by the village, Poland Junior Women’s Club and other Poland community organizations.

“We were contacted by the mayor regarding helping in some way,” said Jeannette Albert, a Poland Junior Women’s Club member. “We already sponsor an Easter egg hunt in the spring and a Halloween parade, so it just seemed like a natural fit to be involved in a Christmas event as well.”

Laurie LaPlante, secretary of Poland Junior Women’s Club, said the celebration will involve carolers from Poland Seminary High School, cookies made by club members and hot cocoa from both Friendly’s and the Mocha House.

“We’ve made 450 luminaries,” LaPlante said. “We’re going to put them all around town hall.”

Remaining luminaries will line sidewalks leading to the town hall.

The lighting of Peterson Park, at the intersection of U.S. Route 224 and state Routes 616 and 170, follows at 6:15, and Santa Claus arrives via Western Reserve Joint Fire District firetruck about 6:30.

The trees outside the town hall will be lit about 7.

Cookies, carols and hot chocolate round out the evening.

“We want to try to make it an annual tradition if we could,” Sicafuse said.

The village contributed $500 to the celebration, and the Poland Rotary pitched in $250 to buy lights for the large pine trees outside the town hall.

Because it’s a first, organizers don’t know how many attendees to expect this year.

“We’re trying to get the word out now,” LaPlante said.

Signs have been posted throughout the center of town, and fliers were distributed to elementary schoolchildren.

“I hope the community comes down to see friends and maybe meet new friends and to just kick off the holiday season,” Albert said.

Town One Streetscapes, which maintains Peterson Park, has been lighting trees at the triangular park for years. This year, the group changed the plan to coordinate its lighting with the village event, said Larry Warren, Streetscapes president.

The event is open to everyone, although families are the target audience, Sicafuse said.

“This year it’s going to be nice, but I can envision in years to come, it will be even bigger,” the mayor said.

denise_dick@vindy.com