It’s the project that has brightened Mercer Island during the dim times of a pandemic.
With about 90,000 lights beaming away, Illuminate MI is making an impact on Islanders this holiday season. It’s provided an extra pop of positivity.
The city has received more than $22,000 in donations from individuals, businesses and community organizations to fund the project, which features lights on the median trees down 78th Avenue Southeast, the pedestrian crossing on 27th Avenue Southeast near the drive-through Starbucks and the sequoia tree, pergola and hedges at Mercerdale Park.
“People were looking for a reason to be supportive. They wanted an opportunity to see their donations reflected within the community. As we’ve seen through COVID-19, whether it’s donating to the community fund, to YFS (Youth and Family Services), to this project, specifically. The generosity has just been amazing,” said Ryan Daly, the city’s operations section chief of the Emergency Operations Center.
Here’s the hefty donation breakdown: Griswold level donors of $3,000-plus are the Mercer Island Community Fund, Rotary Club of Mercer Island and Ryan Companies. Buddy the Elf level donors of $500-$2,999 are Evergreen Church, Mercer Island Firefighters – IAFF Local 1762, The Mercer Apartments, Mercer Island Radio Operators, Pagliacci Pizza and Secret Santas (personal donations). Two anonymous donors contributed $5,000 and $1,000 and various individual donations totaled $1,000-plus.
Daly added that the Mercer Island Community Fund also provided vital donation acceptance and financial services.
“As soon as we started reaching out to get the donations, we had some significant individual private donations. Once that occurred, quite honestly, the funds starting rolling in and the community support just grew,” Daly said.
Initially, the city was going to light just Mercerdale Park like in years past, but the community group that raised the funds and hosted the event last year wasn’t available this time out. Daly and city councilmember Jake Jacobson teamed up to create the Illuminate MI project, which was geared toward just 78th Avenue Southeast at first. If they could secure a significant amount of funding, they wanted to expand the project to additional areas. Consider it done.
“The Illuminate Mercer Island project dramatically demonstrates the selfless generosity and community spirit of Mercer Islanders,” Jacobson said. “The opportunity to be involved with my fellow residents in rekindling an Island tradition has been incredibly rewarding to me and I’m eager to tap into this community spirit to make Mercer Island an even better place in the future.”
When setting their sights on lighting the behemoth 60-foot sequoia in Mercerdale Park from bottom to top, Daly said the city had to rent a large lift to get the job done.
With heaps of volunteers ready to help install lights in the median trees, the Nov. 14 event was cancelled due to COVID concerns. City crews put the lights up that day. Daly was looking forward to working with the volunteers on Nov. 14 and sharing in the community effort.
City staff-wise, participating in Illuminate MI has been an emotionally uplifting experience.
“We’ve had a tough year as well, and this has energized (us) — from the city manager down to our frontline staff — really created an excitement within the city personnel, which is great,” Daly said.
