WILD Winter Festival of Lights

Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue is excited to bring you the 2nd Annual WILD Winter Festival of Lights! Last year’s Festival of Lights was a great success thanks to you, our guests, and our sponsors who came to dazzle us!

This year we are raising funds for some great causes: The Super Sophia Project, Rays of Sunshine Everywhere, and JumpStart Canada.

...can't wait to see you!

What is the WILD Winter Festival of Lights?

Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue’s annual WILD Winter Festival of Lights is your new holiday tradition; it’s a drive-through experience and a feast for your eyes, taking you through a magical avenue of dazzling holiday light displays!

Local businesses, community organizers, farmers & families poured their hearts into this dazzling event in support of The Super Sophia Project, Rays of Sunshine Everywhere (ROSE), JumpStart Canada, local food banks & more. We also helped 2 families in need of support this year!

Once again this year, they decked out their floats, tractors, and holiday displays with brightly coloured lights and came together to create a wonderful family experience for you to enjoy, and in support of our great community!

In 2021, the WILD Winter Festival of Lights was the recipient of a Provincial Grant, which meant an even bigger and better festival! A HUGE Thank-You to the Province of Ontario for making this all possible!

We have also been awarded 2 Readers’ Choice Awards:
Best Local Event & Best Local Festival — Thank You!

The WILD Winter Festival of Lights has moved
to a larger venue for 2021! Come see us at the:

⇒ Canadian Tire Motorsport Park! ⇐

Festival Dates: Friday, December 10th – 19th, 2021

Times Available: 5:00pm – 11:00pm

Style: Drive-Through, Ticketed Event

A fun and COVID-safe way to
enjoy the spirit of the holidays,
all while helping our community!

Our History

In December of 2020, in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue organized and executed the first drive-through “WILD Winter Festival of Lights”, held at the Orono Fairgrounds. It was more of a success than we could have imagined.

The goal of this event was to spread holiday cheer when so many Holiday events had been canceled. All Santa Claus parades were canceled, the local tractor parade couldn’t run, most malls had even removed their “letters to Santa” boxes! The WILD Winter Festival of Lights not only brightened our communities’ spirits but also was able to fundraise for Durham Region’s only wildlife hospital, St. Joseph’s Food Bank, Clarington East Food Bank, St. Vincent de Paul and other community organizations and local families that had been extremely affected by COVID-19.

Visit our website to find out more about Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue!

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.

During this time, Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue’s volunteers were able to collect over 300 new and gently used snowsuits for children, winter clothing for the homeless, toys for families who could not afford gifts, 10,000 non-perishable food items (which allowed us to fill up the 2 local food banks) and raised over $5,000 for a family who had lost everything in a house fire just a few weeks prior to the event.

The WILD Winter Festival of Lights was made possible by the over 250 volunteers who donated their time to help check guests in, wave to the attendees, collect, sort and deliver all donations just in time for Christmas.

Would you like to volunteer at this year’s Festival of Lights?

Visit the Join the Festival page to apply now!