By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
When the City of Great Bend had to cancel the Home for the Holidays Festival the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Community Coordinator Christina Hayes was afraid numbers would be significantly down for those going through the city’s trail of lights.
To give the city a small snapshot of how many people visit the trail of lights, volunteers are positioned near the gate of Brit Spaugh Park from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on select nights. Collecting data from 25 days during the 2023 holiday season, there were 2,227 vehicles that drove through the trail, down from the 3,136 in 2022.
"What I was really impressed with this year was our donation totals," said Hayes. "I thought it would be significantly down because of the missed days, but it came out great."
Those driving through donated $4,146 in 2023 which is used to improve the light displays. The donation total increased from 2022's $3,898.
"We did have people say they were disappointed we did not have anything new, but people care about the maintenance and want to make sure that the trail of lights is important," said Hayes.
Of the all the vehicles tracked, just under 83% were from Barton County. The next two highest counties with visitors were Pawnee County with 56 and 38 from Rice County. There were 19 total states accounted for that went through the park and one visitor from Switzerland.