Talks of Christmas...in August?

It’s no secret that last year Marshfield was lacking in the Christmas Decor department. The standard electric pole Christmas ornaments that the community had come to know and love over the years, never made it to the poles. 

“With a very busy construction season last year, along with great weather and working conditions, city crews were completely covered up trying to complete several projects prior to weather changing,” reflected Sam Rost, City of Marshfield City Administrator. 

“The old Christmas lights take some time to go through to check bulbs, wiring, and structural integrity prior to installation. The old Christmas lights simply have strands of lights wrapped around them which often leads to bare wires and broken bulbs after installation and during removing them from the poles to put into storage,” reflected Rost. “It was not an easy decision, nor one that I took lightly, but there simply was not enough time to get them prepped and installed.”

It didn’t take long for the community to express their disheartened feelings about the missing light pole decorations. The city and the chamber heard the cries of the community to bring back their Christmas decorations. 

However, it wasn’t as easy as some people might have thought. With the old decorations beyond repair, the city was at a loss for how to replace them and the chamber didn’t want a repeat of complaints about pole decorations at this year’s 2022 Christmas Parade. 

“In December last year, (as soon as we realized that there really was not sufficient time to get them (the lights) ready and installed I reached out to Kim Clift to see if there might be a possibility to partner with the Chamber to come out next year (2022) with a new and improved look for the Christmas lights. Kim was awesome to work with and she really embraced the idea,” Rost shared of the preplanning that went into finding a solution for the light pole Christmas decorations. 

Rost attended a Chamber board meeting a few months back and together conversations began. “We talked about what that (replacing the light pole decorations) might look like, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to apply for a grant from Webster Electric. I looked at what lights that we currently have and gave Kim a rough count of what it would take to replace what we have……..which was approximately 40 lights. Kim and the Chamber ran with it from there to track down the information for the grant,” explained Rost.

The chamber went into action and formed a Christmas Decorations Committee. Jessica Rezak was named chair of the committee and the team got to work.

“We applied for a $10,000 grant from Webster Electric,” explained Jessica Rezak, board member of the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Christmas Decorations committee chair. 

To improve the chances of getting the grant, the Chamber and the city came together to find funds to match the $10,000 grant award should they receive it.

“… even though I could not speak for the Board of Aldermen, I was very confident that if the Chamber was awarded the grant, and matched part of the grant, then the City of Marshfield would partner with them to maximize the amount of the grant,” reflected Rost. “From there, a request was made to the Board of Aldermen to match the Chambers $5,000 to go toward the purchase of new Christmas lights. The Board of Aldermen unanimously approved the request.”

“I wrote the grant. We had $5,000 from the Chamber, $5,000 the city matched, and then we were granted $10,000 from Webster Electric,” explained Rezak of the community effort and team work between the City of Marshfield and The Chamber. 

“Between the grant $10,000, the Chamber $5,000, and the City of Marshfield $5,000, the Chamber was able to order very recently $20,000 worth of new Christmas lights,” shared Rost.

“I was able to order forty-four foot snowflakes, for the forty poles around the square,” shared Rezak. “Since we decided to start doing the parade of lights at night we thought the square needed to be fixed up more, especially around Christmas time.” 

The snowflakes are scheduled to arrive around the middle of October. 

“The city will be hanging them. Our goal is to get them up and have them on the day after Thanksgiving,” shared Rezak. The Chamber encourages businesses around the square to decorate their store windows for Christmas this year to add to the ambiance of the new pole decorations. 

“This is an exciting opportunity, and we are anxious to get the new lights and work with Webster Electric to get them installed,” expressed Rost with excitement. Rezak shared that this is just the beginning of the new Christmas committee’s goals to improve Christmas spirit in Marshfield, “Our goal is to continue doing this throughout Marshfield. Every year we want to add more and more lights and decorations….this isn’t going to stop after this year, this is just our start.” 

The city shared a similar perspective and excitement about the future of Christmas for the City of Marshfield, “This is also something that we are hoping and anticipating on being able to expand upon in the future… that might be able to be seen along Jackson Street and possibly even Spur Drive. But for now, we are truly excited and appreciative of the partnership that we were able to be a part of with the Marshfield Chamber of Commerce,” shared Rost.

This year the Marshfield Christmas Parade of Lights is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 3. For more information you can visit the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce website or call the office at (417) 859-3925.