Support Your Hudson Community! 

 

Help ensure the city’s Main Street Greens are festively lit each holiday season in perpetuity.

 

Join us! We are building an endowment fund in partnership with Hudson Community Service Association (HCSA) to support this merry and bright cause.  

The holiday lighting of our greens is one of the cherished community traditions that make Hudson such a special and inviting place. Our goal is to ensure that this tradition continues for generations to come.    

An endowed fund for the holiday lighting will require about $200,000 be raised over time.

The goal for 2020 is to raise $20,000 during the holiday season toward that endowment goal.

Hudson’s holiday lighting is a long-standing public-private partnership.

  • It brilliantly demonstrates the power in our community coming together. The City of Hudson and Hudson Public Power take care of hanging the lights each November and supplying the electricity used through the holiday season. But private funds have been raised annually for decades by the HCSA Lighting Committee to pay for the actual lights, roping, wreaths, bows and the closely watched Clocktower Mouse. The annual fundraising has ebbed and flowed over the years. In the future, with an endowment in place at Hudson Community Foundation (HCF), annual fundraising will no longer be necessary.

Building on success of Independence Day Fireworks endowment

  • The holiday lighting endowment was inspired by HCF’s multi-year work in building an endowment, which was completed in 2019, to fund Hudson’s annual Independence Day Fireworks in perpetuity. Through the generosity of hundreds of donors – including families, individual and businesses – we now have the funding fully secured at HCF to support the fireworks year after year without additional fundraising.  That is the same vision we have for our holiday lighting going forward.

Rich history of Community Spirit

  • Hudson’s holiday lighting tradition was started in 1948 by Hudsonite Mary Lou Morse, her family and friends. As a way to celebrate the end of World War II and a return to peace, the Morse family began stringing holiday lights on the small trees that had been planted on the Village Green. Over time and as the trees grew tall, HCSA began to provide the lights (more than 8,000 energy-efficient LED bulbs today) and decorations while the city provides the equipment, labor and electricity to 

 

We are asking everyone to join together to make a donation to the Holiday Lighting Endowment Fund so this very special lighting can continue to be part of the Hudson experience for our families and visitors into the future.

 

 

or:
Mail to Hudson Community Foundation at PO Box 944, Hudson, Ohio 44236 for the benefit of the Holiday Lighting Fund.

For tax purposes, Hudson Community Foundation, tax ID 34-1935499, is a public charity under Internal Revenue Code sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1).

HCF is proud to be accredited by the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations, meeting the nation's highest philanthropic standards for operational quality, integrity and accountability.