Fort Borst Park drive-thru Christmas light display raises more than $57K

By Owen Sexton  / owen@chronline.com
Posted 1/17/25

The Fort Borst Park 2024 drive-thru Christmas light display brought in a total of $57,500 last December, according to Centralia Deputy City Manager Amy Buckler.

Buckler gave the Centralia City …

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Fort Borst Park drive-thru Christmas light display raises more than $57K

Posted

The Fort Borst Park 2024 drive-thru Christmas light display brought in a total of $57,500 last December, according to Centralia Deputy City Manager Amy Buckler.

Buckler gave the Centralia City Council a rundown of statistics from the popular Christmas drive-thru light display during the council’s Tuesday, Jan. 14, meeting.

The total of $57,500 outpaced 2023’s total of $49,250. In all, 7,150 vehicles drove through the display, which was down from 2023 when 9,140 vehicles visited.

“But it really had to do with we had less days (of operation),” Buckler said. “We always start the first Friday of every December. That was a little later this (December) than last year.” 

While the price of entrance for individual vehicles rose from $5 to $7 in 2024, extra donations also increased, going from $3,573 in 2023 to $4,250 in 2024.

There were some hurdles along the way, including someone cutting the Christmas lights when the display was first set up.



“For several days, somebody went in and cut many of the Christmas lights, and staff had to race around repairing them and putting up new lights,” Buckler said. “We did get great support from the police department, who put in some great thinking and creative ideas that really helped to mitigate that, and we’re going to be having a conversation with them about how we can be a little bit more proactive with that vandalism mitigation next year.”

Of the money raised, $44,000 will fund future maintenance and construction at Fort Borst Park along with purchasing new lights for next year’s drive-thru light display.

“The (Centralia) Police Officers Association received over $8,000, which they plan to use for Night Out with Santa, a great event that helps low-income families in Centralia,” Buckler added.

An additional $300 will go to each of the local nonprofits and agencies that helped volunteer to run the drive-thru light display.

Buckler stated that her staff is working on adjusting the contracts for the next Christmas drive-thru light display to let the local nonprofits and agencies “take home a little bit more.”

“This is a great money maker for Borst Park. It was one of the reasons it was made, so that we would have funds to help improve the park. But we probably need to make a little bit of an adjustment at this point for that,” Buckler said. “All in all, a great year, and we’ll see everybody next December.”