MILWAUKEE — Hundreds of Milwaukee area students are taking their arts and crafts skills to the next level, by decorating the Christmas trees in Cathedral Square Park.
“We worked really hard on the trees so you may not be able to come but if you can, try to come because all the children that worked on all the different trees worked really hard on them,” said student Amelia Marz.
From shiny tinsel to handmade ornaments of all shapes and sizes, 140 Christmas trees fill Cathedral Square Park for the 24th annual Milwaukee Holiday Lights Festival.
Over the past few weeks, students from schools across the Milwaukee area, as well as local organizations, have made their way down to leave their mark, coming up with a class theme or a special wish for each fir.
“Having so many different people from different walks of life, from different schools, from different areas of Milwaukee, from different organizations, is so fun and important and really embodies the holiday spirit,” said Rebecca Sue Button/Marketing, Events and Social Media Director, Milwaukee Downtown BID 21
For nearly two decades, Greg Peterson and his team at Clean Sweep Ambassadors have placed each and every Christmas tree in this park for the Holiday Lights Festival.
Greg says he’s seen the number of trees and the number of people participating grow incredibly throughout the years.
“It’s a good time for people to come out and enjoy things and share things and be together, be part of the community. And in this case, we call this park Community Spirit Park and each one of these children are creating their own this piece of holiday magic to share with the community,” said Peterson.
Two of those kids sharing the magic are third graders Amelia Marz and Nura Mahammad.
They say they’re excited to decorate and they hope people like what they have to share.
“I’m really happy that I get to do it, it was really fun to do,” said Nura.
“I feel people will very much enjoy all the different trees here because they'll know that children made them and then maybe if someone's having a bad day, the trees might cheer them up,” said Amelia.
The official lighting ceremony is this Thursday at 5pm and the trees will be up until January 1.
