The holiday season and yuletide joy will officially kick off on Kaua’i this Friday with the fifth annual Festival of Lights at Historic County Building and the Lights of Rice Parade on Rice Street. The Festival of Lights has become
The holiday season and yuletide joy will officially kick off on Kaua’i this Friday with the fifth annual Festival of Lights at Historic County Building and the Lights of Rice Parade on Rice Street.
The Festival of Lights has become a local holiday tradition, with decorations and lights inside the oldest operating government structure in Hawai’i and thousands more lights decorating trees in the park in front of the building.
More than 3,000 people attended last year’s event.
This year’s renewal will be opened with a lighting ceremony involving Kaua’i County officials and community leaders at 6 p.m.
The ceremony will be followed by the parade on Rice Street at 6:30 p.m. It will be the largest parade of the holiday season, organizers said.
In addition, the Kaua’i Chorale, the Garden Island Singers and Sandy Smith will perform holiday songs, and the Salvation Army’s food and toy drive will begin.
Elizabeth Freeman, a coordinator of the festivities, said the light show is the “heart and soul” of the event.
The lights and ornaments for the Festival of Lights were created by Kapa’a resident Josie Chansky and her late husband Joe, who assembled them over 30 years and put them on display at their home on Kawaihau Road for children.
The Chanskys were among the first Kaua’i families to decorate their homes on a grand scale for the holiday season. When her husband died in the mid-1990s, Josie Chansky didn’t have the energy or time for the massive holiday project and decided to sell her collection. With donations from Seacliff School, Freeman bought the lights.
Freeman coordinated the lights display for three years, but eventually turned it over to the county after Mayor Maryanne Kusaka offered more help.
This year, travel and tourism students at Kaua’i High School created a Santa workshop inside the county building.
Helping install the decorations and lights were volunteer Anna Murillo and inmates from Kaua’i Community Correctional Center.
Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus will be on hand to greet Kauaians from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday and again on Dec. 7-8, 14-15, 21-22 and 24 at the building.
Despite work on the Rice Street improvements, the parade will go on. The parade route will be safe for spectators and participants, according to Goodfellow Brothers, the road project’s contractor.
The parade route runs from the intersection of Rice and Hardy/Kalena streets to the Historic County Building.
Representatives Goodfellow, the parade organizers and the county walked the parade route at noon Wednesday to determine its safety.
Parade organizers are suggesting that spectators bring flashlights for their own safety. Kaua’i Electric will provide 6,000 glow sticks for that purpose.
The procession will include 36 floats and other units from community groups.
Parking will be available at Lihu’e Civic Center and the parking lots next to the state building and Wilcox Elementary School.
Spectators can ride shuttles to the parade site from the Kmart store in Lihu’e and Harbor Mall in Nawiliwili from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
