March 12th, 2022
The Kiwanis Holiday Lights Board of Directors is pleased to announce $81,000 will be donated to the 60 nonprofit organizations that assisted with the event this past year.
“We’re so happy we could hold the event in 2021 after taking a year off in 2020 due to COVID-19,” said Scott Wojcik, Kiwanis Holiday Lights President. “Driving and walking traffic was up considerably this year and the generosity of the visitors who donated enabled us to give even more back to the nonprofit groups that provided volunteers,” he said.
Additional statistics include:
- Just over 200,000 people attended the 36-day event in 2021 (an average of nearly 5,556 attendees per night)
- 12 tons of food was donated to 19 regional food shelves
- 5,000 children visited Santa in his workshop on weekends
- Winning Nonprofit Decorated Trees were:
- 1st Place $300 prize: BENCHS
- 2nd Place $200 prize: Mankato Family YMCA
- 3rd Place $100 prize: Girl Scout Troop 34494 & 39738
- The Mankato Area Figure Skating Club received the $500 prize for designing the winning Opening Night Parade float
- All set-up was completed over 10 days during the five weekends prior to opening
- All tear-down was completed in 4 days in early January
- $81,000 will be donated to the 60 nonprofit groups that provided 2,474 volunteers and contributed 14,450 hours assisting with set-up, tear-down and evening volunteer help during the event. Remaining proceeds will go to help offset expenses and to improve the event in future years.
- 60+ Greater Mankato businesses participated as cash or in-kind sponsors, showing continued support for the annual event
- The event remains completely volunteer led and operated
- The opening parade and lighting ceremony for the 2022 Kiwanis Holiday Lights season will be November 25, 2022.
THE IMPACT OF KIWANIS HOLIDAY LIGHTS SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 2012
- Over 16,724 volunteers from over 100 nonprofit organizations have participated with set-up, tear-down and running the event, logging over 115,000 volunteer hours
- $513,000 has been donated to the non-profits who have provided volunteers
- .7 tons of food has been collected for area food shelves
- Over 27,000 children have visited Santa in his workshop
- Over 150 businesses have been involved as sponsors, volunteers or in-kind donors
- Over 1,360,000 people have visited Kiwanis Holiday Lights to date!
About Kiwanis Holiday Lights:
The mission of Kiwanis Holiday Lights, Inc. is to create a celebration of holiday lights and displays that is 100% volunteer driven, promotes the Greater Mankato, Minnesota community and raises food/cash donations for those in need.