Seasonal scene: Holiday lights go up in Forestville

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as many villages and cities have put up their holiday lights. For the village of Forestville, this is the first year it has had the opportunity to do so.

During the past year, with the work of Forestville resident and Planning Board member Gloria Yeager and others the village was able to collect enough donations to buy six snowflake lights to mount on the utility poles in the heart of the village.

The 6-foot LED snowflake lights were recently put up by volunteers to go along with the decoration of the village's median on Route 39.

At the recent Forestville Village Board meeting Yeager thanked everyone for their help.

"I would like to thank the community and the people who donated toward the snowflakes, they are up and also Kirk and Frank Schneider who installed them on Saturday morning for us. We had a lot of donations in memory of family and some of the merchants and village people donated ... I would like to thank those who donated and those who worked," she said.

She also thanked Jason Schneider for the use of his cherry picker, and for the ride that she and Trustee Beth Bowker took in it on Saturday.

Yeager worked with New York State Electric and Gas for permission to put up the lights and the village on the liability. She thanked Bowker, Trustee Carol Woodward and former Trustee George Taylor for their help as well.

"They look awesome," Woodward said.

Bowker agreed and said that many residents had told her they think the lights look good.

"Oh, I think they look beautiful," Bowker said.

In preparation for the upcoming holiday season the board mentioned the annual visit from Santa at the Fire Hall on Dec. 10. Santa will arrive at 6 p.m. and will hand out goodie bags to the children. There will also be photos, hot cocoa and wooden ornaments donated by Ray Woodward to decorate. If there is snow then there will also be sled rides.

The board accepted the request of the Skateboard Park Project Committee to disband as a result of the poor economy and lack of interest. The committee did decide to give the money that it had collected for the project for community organizations like the Fall Festival Committee, the Youth-Recreation Committee, the Forestville High School Bowling Team for new uniforms and to Forestville instrumental music teacher Jeffrey Geblein for band supplies.

Woodward reminded residents that the Forestville Food Pantry is collecting new pajamas for less fortunate children in the community.