Photos courtesy of Amy Weimer Photography
The holidays are a time for charity, and no one knows that better than the people behind Butch Bando’s Fantasy of Lights.
Butch Bando’s Fantasy of Lights is a three-mile long, drive-through light show. The light show features 140 light displays, making it one of the biggest light shows in the Midwest, and around 80,000 people attend each year.
The light show also dedicates itself to goodwill and charity. This year, the show is adding a new display built by welding students at the Delaware Area Career Center (DACC). The display honors Recreation Unlimited and hopes to increase awareness about the organization. Ticket sales benefit Recreation Unlimited as well.
“All three of us partnered up in the hopes of creating a sort of showpiece display that helps raise more awareness to Recreation Unlimited,” says Dante Bando, owner of the facility. “And it also gives the kids at DACC a chance to get some real-world experience in building, designing and creating something that they can actually drive a couple minutes down the street and see its real-world application.”
DACC is an education center for those who want to diversify their skill set. Courses include welding, nursing and computer training, among others. DACC educates adults and high school students who want to improve on existing skills or generate entirely new ones.
Recreation Unlimited is a non-profit organization that provides sports and recreation activities year-round to individuals with disabilities. The new light display honors its brand-new, fully-accessible archery range.
“The Recreation Unlimited display incorporates a couple of different things,” Bando says. “It incorporates some trees that are representative of what you see in their logo, and it depicts a child in a wheelchair shooting a bow and arrow from an archery standpoint at a package, and basically the arrow flies through the air, strikes the package and makes the package explode.”
Bando’s goal is to open the DACC students’ eyes to charity and helping others.
“(The project) opens the door, hopefully, to show them what it’s like to be a part of helping people less fortunate and really helping change lives and benefit people,” Bando says. “I think we accomplished that, they all took a lot of pride and ownership in this display.”
Emily Chen is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com
