OPTIMISTS, GIRARDOT CENTER TEAM UP ON LIGHTING DISPLAY

In its continuing goal of reaching out to area young people, the Evening Optimist Club recently teamed up with Girardot Center residents to create the club's first Christmas in the Park Project.

Every year around Thanksgiving, various individuals, clubs and businesses erect colorful displays at Cape Girardeau County Park. The displays line the main road, attracting thousands of drivers who roll through bumper-to-bumper on busy nights.

For the first year, the Evening Optimists have a display. The theme is Santa's workshop, and elves, reindeer and Santa take up several square yards. Next year, project co-chair Tom Jaster said, the display will be three times as large.

Work began in October in the Henry Adams family's three-car garage. Ann Adams, project co-chair, said the group worked on and off for a total of twelve days, cutting, painting and hammering.

The Girardot Center residents helped put the pieces together at the park. Residents chosen to help were the 17 Junior Optimists from the club established at the center.

"We wanted them to do an outside activity where they could have some fun and also some responsibility," Jaster said. "We also wanted to help mainstream them into the society they were taken away from because of their pasts."

After a few hours' work, the teen-agers ate pizza and then returned to the center.

Although the display won't come down for over a month, Jaster and Adams already are planning next year's work.

"When we go to expand this, we will have the kids involved at an earlier stage," Jaster said.

There are four Optimist clubs in Cape Girardeau. The Evening Optimists meet at 6 p.m. every Thursday at the Holiday Inn.