Lanterns to light up Polson sky, benefit Loaves and Fishes food bank
Berl Tiskus
Sky lanterns will be lit and launched from Providence St. Joseph Medical Center on New Years Eve.
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POLSON — It’s long been Asian tradition to use sky lanterns for luck, sending glowing wishes into the night sky while symbolically letting the past go.
This New Years Eve the paper lanterns will be sent skyward with wishes for Polson, igniting a renewed passion to strengthen the community and fuel the local food pantry. Participants can purchase the lanterns for $5 each and the money will go straight to Polson Loaves and Fishes.
Polson Hallmark owner Marilyn Frame sparked the idea when she decided to purchase 160 lanterns and donate them for an event to somehow benefit Polson, but wasn’t sure what that would be.
“I just wanted something we could do for the community,” Frame said.
When Jackie Cripe of Jackie M’s Footwear heard about the lanterns, she said her mind was racing, thinking about “how to make our community stronger, healthier and better.”
Cripe suggested using the donated lanterns as a fundraiser for the food bank, and partnered with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, which will host the event.
“St. Joe’s is part of our downtown, part of our main street, one of our largest employers, and it’s important to be a part of downtown,” Cripe said.
People will gather in the hospital lobby at 5 p.m., where those who haven’t already purchased lanterns in advance from Hallmark, Jackie M’s or The Terrace can buy a $5 lantern the night of the event and write their wish while sipping on hot chocolate. Then the event will move to the empty field north of the hospital parking lot, where the wishes and lanterns will be lit and launched.
Cripe expects the event to be touching and filled with emotion.
If all lanterns are purchased, it will equate to an $800 donation to the food bank.
“The whole idea is to embrace community. It’s important to pull all of us together to strengthen our downtown, our Main Street and our community,” Cripe said. “I think it will be a real inspiring thing to start the new year.”
When the lanterns lift off on New Year’s Eve, Frame said her hope for 2015 will be scribbled on the glowing paper: a wish for Polson to be prosperous.
