City of Lake Station and the Lake Station Lions Club welcomed citizens to celebrate the start of the 2021 Christmas season on Saturday at Lake Station City Hall. Many bright and cheery faces came out to see Santa Claus light the great tree on Central Avenue and enjoy refreshments, crafts, and pictures and gifts with Santa after the lighting.
“This is a big deal here in Lake Station!” said Mayor Bill Carroll. “This is a big deal that we're able to celebrate together as a community and are getting ready to celebrate the holiday season.”
Many community members and departments came together to make the evening possible.
“I appreciate everybody from the fire department and police department, to city hall, to the Lions Club, and everybody who's been a part of this. Adrian Vera and our city workers worked hard to make sure that we have lights out here,” said Mayor Carroll.
The event, in its fourth year, takes the whole community coming together to make it possible. In a small town, that doesn’t go without great effort from city staff and community members. City of Lake Station Chief of Staff Adrian Vera commended his team for bringing this event to fruition.
“Our city workers helped decorate this. We're very limited on staff, and we don't have the funds to hire a company to do it. So we got our guys together; it was just about four guys that did all this decorating,” said Vera.
At a time when everyone can finally get together after a long year, Vera expressed his gratitude for the community event.
“We just want to give a lot of thanks to those city workers who helped decorate all this and to the Lake Station Lions Club, for all they do inside for the kids and all the activities that they've set up. We're going to try to make it better next year and grow little by little each year,” said Vera.
The town has a lot to celebrate, which makes this gathering the perfect time to share the great news of successful initiatives around Lake Station that continue to benefit the community. In particular, Lake Station continues to address the community’s need for food during this holiday season. The City of Lake Station began hosting a Thanksgiving food drive in 2018 with the goal of bringing turkeys and Thanksgiving meals to citizens in need, and the initiative was successfully continued this year.
“The first year we started, we fed about 50 families roughly, and each year it has grown. This year, we fed 100 families with the help of the Lake Station Lions Club and the community,” said Vera.
As the holidays approach, the City of Lake Station Parks Department will be hosting an Angel Tree to donate gifts to Lake Station children in need. City Hall has also recently installed a blessing box outside the main entry to the building.
“There's a big cabinet there and anyone can come by and throw food in there to give to the public. Whoever needs to can come by and grab something. Just come and help yourself out of the blessing box,” said Vera.
City of Lake Station has many ongoing efforts to address the needs of their constituents both this holiday season and year-round.
“Lake Station is a brand new community right now. We are going to be an up-and-coming community. I want us to be known on the map as a good community, and things like this event, this positivity, with the amount of people that showed up tonight, make me extremely glad and extremely proud to be your mayor,” said Mayor Carroll.
The city will soon announce an upcoming Christmas Food drive. For updates on the upcoming food drive, click here.For more information about City of Lake Station, view the website at https://www.lakestation-in.gov.
