Hannah Baleme/MDN Robert Sando sets up his Christmas light display in Oak Park.

The holiday season has arrived, and the Sertoma Club in Minot is spreading cheer with its annual Christmas in the Park light display at Oak Park.

Sertoma Club member and Christmas in the Park event organizer Dave Gowan said the light display has been an integral part of Minot during the holidays for around 25-30 years.

The idea came about all those years ago when the Sertoma Club was looking to do fundraisers.

“A few other clubs in the region did Christmas in the Park and that gave us the idea to do the same. We got a hold of the park district and told them we were interested in setting up displays in the park,” Gowan said.

“Years ago, when we first got started, our displays had to be shipped to Minot, but later, we decided we can just make this stuff ourselves. We have a system in place now where we can create all of our own. And this year we are pretty full. We currently have 68 displays,” he said.

Every display in Oak Park is made by the Sertoma Club. The club partners with the Burdick Job Corps Center in Minot to make it happen.

“The Job Corps has a division for welding, so we have welders weld all our displays together, and then we wire to make them work,” said Gowan.

Last year, the light show raised and profited $70,000. All the funds raised go towards Sertoma Club charities.

It costs $5 per car to drive through.

“The people that go through the park are always more than generous. There’s hundreds of people that will give us $20 and say keep the change. There is also a pay-it-forward sometimes, where for the whole evening somebody pays for the person behind them, and they keep paying it backwards,” Gowan said.

Buses can still go through for $20 a bus.

“We also sometimes have limousines and will even get some horses and wagons that come through,” Gowan said. “It’s really popular now, and we are good at what we do.”

There are more than 70 members in the club who volunteer their time for Christmas in the Park. All members are required to do a couple of shifts.

“A person can work with their daughter, wife or anyone that they know, but there must be at least one Sertoma club member in the booth at all times,” Gowan said.

As of now, all the displays are already set up, except for a few of the businesses that set up and take down their own.

“We build new displays every year. We make anything any business wants. One of our newest this year is a curling display with four penguins with brooms. It’s neat because it has eight sequencing moves. We can make anything happen, like elves throwing gifts on Santa’s sleigh, a snowball fight or Santa shooting a freethrow,” Gowan said. “The park lets us set up at the end of October. It’s nice because we are almost done as of now. We just need to wire the displays now to make them work.”

The Christmas in the Park light display in Oak Park begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs through New Year’s Eve. It will be open from 5:30-10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights and open the rest of the week from 5:30-10 p.m.