Ashland's Centre Street is looking much brighter this Christmas after borough volunteers helped update the current decorations.
For nearly 40 years, Ashland's Centre Street had been adorned with Candle Christmas Decorations that had first been installed in 1969. The candles always created an iconic look with the borough's main throughway thanks to the Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce.
In 2008, those candle decorations were replaced by the Chamber with new Christmas Tree and Snowflake decorations. Initially they didn't wow the borough, with many asking to bring the candle decorations back. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible due to many of the former decorations deteriorating, although you can still find some of them at businesses and homes around town today.
One of the main reasons the new decorations were not well liked were due to their brightness. These new decorations with LED lights were not nearly as bright as the Candles, until this year.
14 years after their first Christmas, all 3,520 bulbs in the 61 Tree, Snowflakes, snowman, Santa decorations have been replaced with new brighter LED bulbs, and the difference will surprise you.
Travelling up and down Centre Street now has some added spirit thanks to volunteers Adam J. Bernodin III and Shannon Scheuren.
Bernodin and Scheuren have spent the past several months replacing each bulb, repairing the damaged wiring, and added the broken off light sockets and connected new ones to the wiring in the decorations.
Early last week, John Groody Electric and Heating used his bucket truck to hang the decorations with Bernodin along with Dave Fickinger, Randy Troup, and James Remaley.
The Ashland Area Chamber Commerce "We Light Up the Town" project continues to accept contributions which can be sent to:
Ashland Area Chamber of CommerceAttn: Christmas Lighting Fund
P.O. Box 233
Ashland, PA 17921
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| Submitted Photo |
