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. Each year, they use the display to pay it forward, collecting donations for local schools and nonprofits.
“I was one of the committees at Baldwin, 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.
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.
“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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