ORLANDO, Fla. – A beloved holiday tradition in Orlando’s Baldwin Park neighborhood is now 10 years old. The McBride Family Lights at 3564 New Broad St. features 80,000 lights, and it even snows on the weekends, regardless of the temperature!
“For some reason, it gets dark, the clouds roll in and it just snows right on top of our house,” Matt McBride said.
The McBride Family Lights started in 2013. Now visitors from across Central Florida stop by the family home.
“The honking, cars will stop dead in the road, which, please don’t do that,” Katie McBride said with a laugh. “I often wonder how many pictures of our house are out in the world.”
Each year, they use the display to pay it forward, collecting donations for local schools and nonprofits.
Donation boxes are placed near the picket fence and QR codes make it easy for spectators to give.
Before they started their own display, the family would visit other homes that were decorated with thousands of lights. They noticed some asked for donations to help pay their electric bill.
Katie McBride decided to do something a little different. “If we were going to ask for donations, if we were going to do that, we should give them to somebody else, not just help pay our power bill.”
Over the years the McBrides have donated to the Covenant House and the Alzheimer’s Association but now focus on kids in their own neighborhood.
“I was on one of the committees at Baldwin Park Elementary, the Baldwin Park Cares committee, and we found out there were a bunch of kids at the school who could use a little help,” Katie McBride said.
Terri Poulos is co-chair of the Baldwin Park Cares program at Baldwin Park Elementary which falls under the PTA.
She says about 25 kids rely on the program and that number seems to be growing.
“It’s wonderful, Poulos said of the annual donation. “More and more families are becoming in need.”
Poulos said the McBride donation is used year-round for everything from clothing to stocking the school’s food pantry.
“Their money gets used for everything,” Poulos said. “They don’t even have children in the school. They’re selfless, caring and wonderful. It makes my heart happy.”
The McBrides triple the money that is donated from the community and also contribute to similar programs at Glenridge Middle School and Winter Park High School.
“We raise the funds, and then as they have gaps in their funding, we provide that throughout the year,” Matt McBride said. “So it’s kind of a reminder all year long, and we’re able to have an impact all year long.”
The McBrides and their friends spend about 100 hours creating the holiday magic themselves, even using drones to string lights on some of the trees. The lights come on at sunset and stay on until midnight. No donation is too small.
It takes a full weekend to take it all down and box everything up until next year.
“You don’t have to raise millions of dollars to make an impact for what we’re able to raise and then we triple it ourselves, we’re able to make an impact. And every dollar goes to the kids,” Matt said. “So it’s like right here in our community, we can sort of take this gift for the community and kind of leverage it and allow people to pay it forward for kids who need stuff in the community.”
You can visit mcbridelights.com to learn more.
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