Skene Donate £1000 to Pathheads Christmas Lights
Thursday, September 1st, 2022
Pathhead Christmas Lights is a local community group constituted in 2022 with the aim of fundraising for new Christmas lights for Pathhead.
A conservation village situated in the Tynewater area of Midlothian, Pathhead is known to many people as the A68 road passes right through.
After two quite miserable Christmases brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, Pathhead’s festive gloom was compounded by the dismal street decorations erected in December 2019 and 2020. The village had a total of 4 lamp post motifs (out of around 30 lamp posts in total). To make matters worse only one of these motifs worked. Yes, we had one solitary Christmas light for the whole village. It was very dismal, especially in comparison to nearby villages Lauder and Tranent, both of whom had beautiful festive street lighting decorations.
Upon this despair a few Pathhead residents vowed to improve things. Not only would new Christmas lights improve the festive spirit in the village and help with the struggles many people were facing, we would bring the community together with a planned Christmas Lights ‘switch on’ event to celebrate our new lights.
We contacted Tynewater Community Council. Following their advice and support Pathhead Christmas Lights group was formed with the purpose of fundraising to purchase the lights, cabling, and infrastructure to power them. There are also the costs associated with erecting, dismantling, and storing the equipment each year.
Soon after our Facebook page and Crowdfunder was set-up, with local residents donating over £1,000 within a matter of weeks. Our group was truly astonished at how passionate local residents were about improving things.
We then began to approach local businesses to ask for donations. Skene Group have a local quarry in Soutra and many Pathhead residents recognise their livery on the lorries who pass through the village.
An email was sent and a response was received very quickly… Skene Group would be donating £1,000 to our fundraising efforts! We were absolutely delighted with this contribution. It was far more than we were expecting and it was great to have such a fast response too.
Pathhead Christmas Lights would like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone at Skene Group for this donation. We hope your lorry drivers will enjoy the lights as they pass through Pathhead this Christmas!
