The peak of the holidays are upon us along with a good bout of weather has equaled more visitors to this year’s Christmas By The River, but donations remain down for traffic volume.
Organizers had to revamp plans during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend with a deluge of rainfall that prompted the cancellation of the opening ceremony for the first time in it’s 16 year history. The lights still came on and with the improved weather conditions, traffic through the nightly event has increased.
City of Brandenburg officials said that over 7,000 cars have traveled the path through a park filled with Christmas lights. The only issue is that people are driving through and not providing much in donations which is used to pay for the electricity used to run the nightly event. So far the donations collected have averaged to around just over forty cents per car.
Organizers say that that isn’t a drop in the bucket to begin paying the utility bill for the popular annual attraction. Some savings might be seen as some displays are illuminated with LED bulbs which use less energy. That isn’t enough to help the operating costs. One of the long term goals is to convert all of the lights to LED technology, but that will be a slow process unless a substantial contribution is made for the event.
Christmas By The River is a family event open nightly in the Brandenburg Riverfront Park at the end of of Main Street. Admission is free and a donation box is at the end of the path to allow contributions for the event.
City leaders are hopeful that the donations will increase over the next couple of weeks to help defray the overhead of the utility bill. for more information or to make a donation to Christmas By The River, call Brandenburg City Hall at (270) 422-4981. Christmas By The River is opened nightly beginning at dusk until January 1, 2016.
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