Festival of Lights

The Festival of Lights is the Christmas light display at Azalea Park. In 2021 and 2022, PBARC members helped with parking control across the street from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church. Radio communication is useful for this event because it helps to know how many open slots are left, and when some slots are expected to open up because visitors are loading back into their cars.

2021

In 2021, the Festival of Lights asked if our group could staff the ticket booths and the snack bar for one night. The request would be for eight volunteers for four hours each. For PR, we would have been wearing our yellow vests, and we could have chatted on the radio when there wasn't a line in front of us. We would have been under a roof, so the rain wouldn't have been much of a problem. However, we lost that opportunity because we were not able to get enough members to commit to help.

When we finally said we had volunteers, they told us they'd given our night away, but they asked if we could do parking control on a Friday and Saturday night for the lot across the street from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church; only two people were needed for this. Lynn, Dave and James were there, and things worked well. We were asked if we could do the other Friday and Saturday nights through Christmas. If there would be heavy rain on a given evening, they'd tell us we could stay home (because fewer folks come out on the bad nights). Lynn, Stu, James and Dave did most of those nights. After the season was finished, Nature's Coastal Holiday sent us a $500 donation!

2022

PBARC helped in the parking lot again in 2022. As with last year, we received a $500 donation from Nature's Coastal Holiday. Thank you!