Jolly Holiday Lights will be open this fall from November 22 – January 1
Last December’s unseasonable weather had a disastrous effect on Make-A-Wish® Iowa’s largest fundraising event, Jolly Holiday Lights. Water Works Park, which was home to the event for twenty years was flooded, causing the charity to shutdown half-way through their event. Today, the organization is announcing it is moving the fundraiser to the Adventureland Campgrounds in Altoona.
“After the flooding last year, we needed to take a hard look at our location and see if we wanted to continue the risk involved with having the event at Water Works Park,” said Jamie Rasko, marketing & communications manager for Make-A-Wish Iowa. “Moving an event of this size is a real challenge and we wanted to make sure that everything made sense logistically before making the move.”
Make-A-Wish Iowa grants a wish about every other day in the state of Iowa and plans to grant 192 in their current fiscal year. The holiday fundraiser should have raised enough money to cover the cost of about forty of those wishes.
“We still are in awe of how much the community rallied in those weeks after we closed,” said Rasko. “The individuals, companies and foundations who gave donations on their own and through the #bringthejolly campaign really rescued the event.”
Not all the phone calls that came in to the Make-A-Wish office were for cash donations, though. Adventureland called to suggest that the organization consider their space for the event in the future. The company is donating the space to use and becoming a sponsor of Jolly Holiday Lights in 2016.
“Adventureland Resort is excited to be a sponsor of the Jolly Holiday Lights program and proud that we can contribute to Make A Wish Iowa by donating the Adventureland Campground as the new location starting in 2016!” said Adventureland spokeswoman Molly Vincent.
“We’re really excited about working with the Adventureland team and see a lot of potential to enhance the event this year and in the future,” said Rasko.
The organization plans to start setting up for the first time in Altoona beginning in October. Jolly Holiday Lights will be open this fall from November 22nd through January 1st.