Sapulpa High Schoolers Set Up Christmas Lights For Service Day

Students at Sapulpa High School are having Christmas in July as part of an annual Community Service Day.

"Oh I'm excited, it's Christmas in July all the time," said Senior Joyce Stoneking.

Joyce and more than 100 of her classmates took a break from summer Wednesday morning to help out the community, stringing together thousands of Christmas lights.

"It went very well, everybody was very productive, we got a lot of help, we got everything done a lot faster than expected," said Stoneking.

It was part of the 2nd Annual Chieftain Strong Service Day led by Athletic Director Michael Rose. He said with so much help, they finished the job in under an hour.

"We had about 140-150 students and adults here today, so it's awesome seeing them stay connected throughout the summer at the same time giving back to the community," Rose said.

All those lights are now in a building in downtown Sapulpa, where they'll become part of a huge Christmas Display.

The organizers of the Route 66 Christmas Chute are storing the lights along with everything else they need to create a one-of-a-kind Christmas display.

"This will be roughly a thousand feet of decorated tunnel that will start from Main Street and will go all the way down to our courthouse," said Organizer Will Berry.

Berry and a group of volunteers have been planning this display for years. He said the help from the high school students gets them one step closer to their goal.

"They took all 34,000 feet of strands of lights and installed roughly 34,000 light bulbs into each one of those sockets, so it was a tremendous help because now we're actually ready to make the panels before they get decorated," said Berry.

He said this community-led project is unlike anything Sapulpa has ever seen, and will hopefully draw many visitors to downtown.