Light Up the Night

The Hood County night sky will soon be illuminated as residents pay tribute to their family members and loved ones who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Hosted by Bridgewater Memory Care and The Longest Day Alzheimer’s Association, Light Up the Night is a new event scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 21, at the Acton Middle School track, 1300 James Road.

“Basically, the event is solely to honor your loved one and just take a few minutes out of your day to light up a luminary,” explained Jordan Craig, manager of the Longest Day North Central Texas Alzheimer’s Association.

As Dec. 21 will also mark the day of the winter solstice — the day of the year with the least amount of sunlight — Light Up the Night will also allow community members to shine a light on the darkness of Alzheimer’s.

“Grief is such a big thing and sometimes just taking those little moments to take that break and remember them, a lot of times that helps people to move forward,” said Karen Cooper, community liaison for Bridgewater Memory Care. “It's hard in dealing with a parent or a loved one that is struggling with those diseases, so I'm just like, ‘We've got to do something.’”

Cooper explained there are several families of residents at Bridgewater Memory Care who are currently experiencing the effects of dementia and Alzheimer’s on their loved one.

“Coming into the holidays is a really hard time because things are no longer the same, whether they're still alive and they don't remember or whether they have lost a loved one,” she said. “So, I visited with Jordan and we kind of put our heads together and thought it would be really neat to take a moment right here at the holiday season to give family members and caregivers the opportunity to take a moment and honor or remember their loved one.”

“This will be our first annual event,” Craig said. "Karen actually helped me come up with the idea. She wanted to do a walk in Granbury, so we just kind of elaborated on that and made it a little bit further and we came up with this.”

The Light Up the Night event will kick off at 6 p.m., where attendees can mingle, drink hot cocoa and visit with sponsors.

“It is a free event, but we do have sponsorship opportunities available,” Craig said.

Sponsors can pay $250 and will receive a booth space, a sponsor sign around the track, one group social media mention and five luminaries.

All proceeds will benefit The Longest Day for the Alzheimer’s Association.

“We're asking if people would like to make a donation for a luminary, but it's not necessarily required,” Cooper said. “If someone didn't have money to donate, that's OK. They're not going to be excluded. They can come and have that luminary just like anybody else, but all of the funds will go to the Alzheimer's Association to help continue the fight.”

The ceremony will take place at 6:30 p.m., where attendees will write the name of their loved one on a luminary, place it around the track, and then everyone will light their luminaries at the same time. The walk around the illuminated track will begin directly thereafter.

Craig compared the ceremonial walk to the Walk to End Alzheimer’s — the world’s largest annual event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer's care, support and research.

"We're gonna do it kind of similar to that but at night, and then we’ll do a big lighting ceremony,” she explained. “So, that's kind of what the ceremony is going to be, where you kind of just take a few minutes in the holidays to honor your loved ones and those caretakers.”

With this being the first Light Up the Night event, Cooper said she doesn’t know that she necessarily has an expectation. However, her hope would be that at least 100 people would come out and take part in the soon-to-be annual event.

“I think it's really important that we take time out to remember and to honor those loved ones, and the lives that they've lived,” she added. “I think that's just so important.”

“I’m really excited because I think this is a mission-focused event,” Craig added. “Getting to honor your loved ones and do a big lighting ceremony is going to be super unique. It's not something that's been done before — honoring your loved ones in a different way.”

For more information about The Longest Day Alzheimer’s Association, visit act.alz.org online.