Seeing is believing for one area doctor
How powerful is paper in NE Wisconsin?
December 2, 2024
OSHKOSH – Time flies when looking at Christmas lights, especially when they’re displayed throughout the EAA Airventure campus – the new home of the Oshkosh Celebration of Lights (COL) event.
Drew Stephani, a communications specialist with EAA, said the organization was happy to help after the COL’s usual location suddenly became unavailable.
“(In) September 2023, there was some construction work being done at Menominee Park,” he said. “They actually found a Native American village, and so it kind of became an archeological dig at that point – they delayed the construction project, which then forced a delay on all the other events that were going to happen there.”
Norm Reichenberger, president of the COL organization, said it was a blessing in disguise, as he’s been wanting to move the event to a larger facility for some time.
“We just outgrew the park, and it came to a head with the archeology stuff that was going on in there,” he said. “It ended up doing me a favor (because) I was able to move out by EAA.”
Christmas year-round
For many people, the Christmas season lasts from November through December, but Reichenberger said running the COL organization is a year-round venture for him and his wife, Nancy, as president and secretary/treasurer, respectively.
“She has monthly bills and things that she has to take care of, we’re constantly ordering things to build new displays, I’m constantly working on building new displays (and) repairing ones that got broken,” he said. “There’s an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes stuff that has to be taken care of.”
Reichenberger said he became involved in both COL and EAA through the fabricating business he owned and operated for 42 years – falling into the role of president for COL after he retired.
“(COL) called me up because something broke,” he said. “One thing led to another, I got more and more involved and before I knew it, I was president.”
Providing free maintenance, materials and labor, Reichenberger said he and Nancy never imagined taking a dime from the COL organization truly because they believe in its community value.
“I wouldn’t accept any pay anyway,” he said. “I don’t do this for that reason at all.”
When Menominee Park became unavailable to host the annual drive-through light-display event, Reichenberger said, thankfully, he wasn’t the only one who saw the COL’s value.
“It’s a big event for the community,” Stephani said. “(In) the local area and outside of just the Fox Cities in general, it’s a popular event. So we, of course, wanted to help in any way we could to make the event happen, and we saw a lot of success with it.”
Increased community impact
Reichenberger said though EAA and COL officials anticipated an increase in attendance with the event being held on the aviation group’s campus, the growth they saw exceeded their expectations.
“We had about a 60% increase,” he said. “We would have 14,000-15,000 cars annually go through Menominee Park. Last year (at EAA), we had more than 22,000 cars.”
With more cars, Reichenberger said, came more dollars and cans of food to donate to the community organizations that partner with COL each year.
“We quadrupled our give back to the community (last year),” he said. “We were able to do that (because of) the support that we had from the community coming out here to see the light show.”
As a central conduit for holiday season philanthropy, Reichenberger said the COL will partner with almost any organization that feels its cause could benefit from community exposure via the event.
“We don’t really cater to one (kind of organization),” he said. “If we can figure out a way to fit it in, or (if) they can benefit somehow from what we do, we try to work with organizations like that.”
Since the first COL event, Reichenberger said its partner organizations have collected more than 150 tons of food – “that’s several semi-loads of food that we’ve collected.”
“In the past,” he said, “we’ve had 17-18 food pantries that come out here on different given nights, and they collect food.”
According to the COL website (oshkoshcol.org), the organization supports numerous community organizations like the Oshkosh area humane and zoological societies, The Salvation Army and the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry.
Through its community business sponsors – such as 4imprint, the Oshkosh Area United Way, the JEK Foundation, Wisconsin Public Service Foundation and Thedacare – Reichenberger said the COL organization is able to keep the cost of the event relatively low to compound its community impact.
He also said the price of entry for each carload is intentionally inflated to encourage those attending to bring donation items.
“I need $15 a carload to pay my bills and be able to give back what we want to to the community,” he said. “I don’t need the $20, but I make it steep enough where it’s an incentive for the people to bring in canned goods (to get the $5 discount), so the food pantries make out real well on it. It’s a win-win that way.”
A mutually beneficial relationship
Stephani said aside from providing use of the grounds and security for the event, everything else is done by COL volunteers – and with limited options for a new location, he said EAA was more than willing to help out another local nonprofit.
“It kind of just made a lot of sense for our groups,” he said. “We have the space for it, and there’s not a whole lot of areas around us that are going to have the same amount of space.”
Even before the aviation group offered its facility for the COL, Reichenberger said he knew they were a great organization to work with.
“They are so helpful,” he said. “They are so easy to work with. They’re accommodating for us out here, if we have a problem with something, they fix it. There are no questions asked. I mean, they are just a top-notch, wonderful organization to do something like this with.”
Moving from a public neighborhood park to an expansive rural facility, Reichenberger said he was a bit worried about whether or not they could fill the space.
“Our route was so much shorter down in Menominee Park than it is (at EAA),” he said. “So we put out every last light bulb, every last wire frame that we had last year and my concern was, (that) we were going to have some dead spots.”
Reichenberger said he was “proved 100% wrong” after the COL organization started receiving community feedback regarding its new location.
On social media, Reichenberger said people were commenting about how they loved the new setup because the light displays were spread out, allowing visitors more time to marvel at the individual displays in an area without as much light pollution.
“(EAA has) two street lights on each pole, and there are three poles right by our entrance hut,” he said. “I want those left on so we have some lighting for the cars to pull up and pay when they enter the grounds here, but (for) the rest of it all, the street lights are turned off.”
Though EAA puts on its own Christmas event, Stephani said the organization still contributes aviation-themed displays to the COL.
“We have our own event called Christmas in the Air,” he said. “We actually had record attendance for our own event (last year), and we think Celebration of Lights may have had something to do with that, just because it makes people more aware of us.”
In addition, Stephani said the EAA museum saw increased attendance.
EAA’s Christmas in the Air event is happening Dec. 7 this year, Stephani said, on the same day as the United Way Race for the Lights 5K – in which participants will run the same route as the COL.
Both Reichenberger and Stephani said the two organizations are looking forward to a continued partnership after reaching an agreement to host the COL on the EAA campus through 2028.
The COL is open for drive-thru visitors from Nov. 29 through New Year’s Eve.
For more information, visit oshkoshcol.org, or find COL on Facebook.
