Why No Lights This Year?

We’ve received several emails from people who are unhappy that we are not doing Wintertide Lights this year. This was not a decision we made lightly, and I want to outline the reasoning behind the decision.

First a little about Evergreen Arboretum and Gardens. We are an all-volunteer organization providing about 4,000 hours to maintain and enhance the gardens, provide classes for adults and children, and events for all ages. We raise money for the work that we do through our annual plant sale, memberships, grants, and donations.

We began lighting up the Arboretum during COVID, a year when we could not do our usual work, to bring some happiness to our community. It started small and, over the next five years, grew.

Each year the number of hours required to put on Wintertide Lights has increased. Last year our volunteers put in about 750 hours hanging lights in the month of November. We scheduled a volunteer every day in December to make sure the lights came on in the gardens and to turn on the ballfield lights to keep the parking lot safe. We also have volunteers to greet guests and hand out scavenger hunts and candy canes on weekends in December, and, starting last year with the loss of Park Rangers, coming back at closing to turn off the ballfield lights. Then in January, we’re back—removing all the lights. The only other event that takes more volunteer time is our June plant sale. And that makes money we need to maintain and improve the Arboretum.

Each year the event gets more expensive. Last year we budgeted $28,000 for Wintertide Lights. We’re not a large organization, and that’s about 1/5th of our total budget. Although we had two grants that would have covered $20,000, we were expecting both the contractor who hangs lights in the bigger trees and lighting supplies to be more expensive than anticipated. Since we must pay expenses upfront and then be reimbursed by the grants, we need enough money in our budget to cover all event costs.

When we began Wintertide Lights, we hoped it would bring pleasure to the community in a dark year. We also hoped it would bring in more members and more volunteers, boosting our bottom line and lessening the load on our older volunteers. We clearly achieved the first goal. The second, not so much.

We hope you will enjoy Deck the Boughs. We’ve focused on recycled and natural materials for our garden décor. The gnomes will be back. There will be a morning Solstice walk and craft workshops for all ages on December 21st. There are more free lighting events elsewhere than when we started Wintertide, but we think a walk in the Arboretum looking at birds (crocheted and real), gnomes, and colorful pom poms is a lovely, lower key, less resource-intensive way to enjoy some time outdoors. We hope you will agree.