Volunteers help make season bright

Nita and Larry Ash had been roaming state to state, campsite to campsite, when during a Lowcountry stayover in 2000, they saw the light.

Not just one light — actually more than a million. The Ashes, retirees who sold their Greenville home to travel thousands of miles each year in their RV, discovered the annual Holiday Festival of Lights at James Island County Park.

The show and the people who put it on made such an impression on Larry and Nita that they decided to not only come back each fall, but to also become volunteers who help set up the show, put it on and take it down.

'We love it. It's our favorite place to be and one of the nicest campgrounds you can go to,' Nita said.

She and Larry arrived Sept. 26 this year to help prepare the show, which opened Nov. 13 and runs through Jan. 3. The couple plan to remain until March, Larry said.

The park's 124-site campground is filled every fall with RVs and trailers that bring in fans of the light show, including about 20 couples who serve as volunteers for the event. Campground space is sold out every fall — a full year in advance — said campground operations manager Elizabeth Harlan.

'This is our busiest time of the year for the campground,' Harlan said.

Volunteers perform chores ranging from assembling, testing, maintaining and mounting displays to running electrical wire, exchanging year-old bulbs with bright new ones, and hosting crowds at rides and displays, said Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission publicity coordinator intern Katie Varn.

She said the show is listed as one of the nation's top 10 light shows by the American Bus Touring Company and hotelscombined.com.

The show opened in 1989 with just 18 light displays and has grown to 750 separate displays, plus family-friendly activities that include rides, food, music, gingerbread houses, Santa's Village, the Enchanted Forest Walking Trail, marshmallow roasting and gift shops.

The show now pops with more than 2 million bulbs, including those incorporated into strands. To ensure maximum display, bulbs that can be replaced are changed out each year, Varn said.

'We took out 180,000 bulbs and then put (new ones) back,' Larry Ash said.

The Ashes first came to the park nine years ago while making campground rounds that have taken them up and down the East Coast and far into the West. They became show volunteers five years ago and say it's the only event they now commit their free time to.

Volunteers get breaks on campground fees, but also come away with new and lasting friendships and the satisfaction of making light show visitors' holiday experiences unforgettable, Nita said.

Among the couple's new friends are Beverly and Ron Timm of Grand Rapids, Mich. The Timms returned to the show for the sixth time this year and said they are recruiting their Michigan friends to come down, camp and volunteer for the show. They are expecting some friends to arrive in January to join campers who arrive at that time to help take down the show and put much of it away in 29 storage trailers until next September.

The Timms said they have made 'a lot of continuing friendships' during their park stays. 'We really enjoy the different people we meet. They are from all over,' Ron said.

Larry and Nita said they enjoy seeing the joy and delight on the faces of first-time visitors, especially children, at the light show. 'People are just awed by the lights, especially people who have not been here before,' Nita said.

'It's hard for them to believe there are that many lights,' Larry added.

Nita recalled some humorous incidents she and Larry experienced while assisting families at the train and carousel rides. The train is not actually part of a railroad, as one child discovered and shared: 'That's not a real train! It's a John Deere tractor with a cover over it,' Nita recalled hearing the child tell a parent.

Another time, she said she had to laugh when a child pointed her out as she took a late-night rest on a park bench: 'Look, there's a scarecrow,' the child declared.

But Nita and Larry said they love kids and now have two 'grandbabies' ages 3 months and 7 months. They're not yet old enough to appreciate the show, but 'next year they are going to know what it's all about,' she vowed.

For more about the park, see www.ccprc.com/index.aspx.

Reach Edward C. Fennell at efennell@postandcourier.com or 937-5560.