

In a mere 4 weeks, Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue and their crew of family & volunteers solely designed, constructed and executed a 3 day, drive-through Festival of Lights. It consisted of 50 community displays, including 2 Monster Trucks, Boyle Excavating, Bob’s Towing, and Cardan Construction, and even a family-owned Child Grief Center.
Our festival of lights decorated the Orono Fair Grounds with over 500,000 lights, 75 inflatables, 50 displays, and of course, holiday music! Santa even made an appearance with Canada Post, collecting letters from children. We were even lucky enough to have 501, a Disney-recognized Star Wars unit come out and have Storm Troopers march through the cars!
Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue held free workshops for families in the community to come to the wildlife center and build wooden pallet Christmas trees and decorate them. The 60 Christmas Tree-shaped wooden pallets were donated to us from Bowmanville Wood Products. These same trees made up a display called the WILD forest in which we illuminated all of the trees for the community to enjoy. At the end of the festival, the families were able to bring these trees home!
Over the course of the 3 evenings (5:00-9:30 pm), over 20,000 people braved the downpour of rain and flooded the Orono fairgrounds to witness the community come together and celebrate the holiday season. The display itself took about 30 minutes to experience.