Delmont neighborhood's decorating fundraiser nets more than $15K for library, Project Bundle Up

After the first night of their holiday decorating fundraiser — one that jammed up traffic along Route 66 for hours last month — the residents of Delmont’s Monticello neighborhood started texting one another to see how the night went.

“The sheer total of cars let us know (the total) was going to be more than we thought,” resident Kelly Mazon said.

It turned out to be a lot more.

On Jan. 2, children from the neighborhood presented checks totaling more than $15,000 to Delmont Public Library and Project Bundle Up.

With no safe way to host a neighborhood Christmas party, residents decided to go all-out with house decorations, inviting the public to drive by in mid-December and “vote” for their favorite via donation. A few weeks after the two-day competition, checks for just under $7,800 were presented to both organizations, helping to brighten an otherwise rainy Saturday.

“I almost had a heart attack,” librarian Denni Grassel said. “They had the kids line up, and when they started turning around, I couldn’t believe it.”

Grassel lives in Monticello, but Mazon said organizers kept the total secret to surprise her.

“If we’d have gotten $1,000, we’d have been happy,” said Mazon, whose decorations won the competition for most donations. “But we ended up with that much the first night at my house alone. And then Sunday when we had a very similar stream of cars come through, we were really amazed.”

Mazon’s neighbor helped set up a Venmo link for donations, which collected an additional $1,500.

“We ended up opening a bank account because no one wanted all that money in their house,” she said.

Grassel said the donation will be a great help in getting the new Delmont Public Library on its feet.

“It’s going to be tremendous for us,” she said. “We have a brand new library, the community invested in it, and now we’re going to invest in the community.”

It will begin with a three-day grand opening, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 21-23 at the new building, at 75 School St. behind the borough building.

“We’re spreading out the grand opening for health and safety, but the main celebration will be from 10 a.m. to noon on Jan. 23,” Grassel said. “We’ll have refreshments and crafts for kids.”

Following the grand opening, the library will be open for the same modified hours as last month. In addition, Delmont Borough Council meetings will start being held in the library’s new meeting room, beginning with this month’s meeting, set for 7 p.m. Jan. 12.

As for the Monticello decorating fundraiser, Mazon hopes it continues.

“One of our neighbors commented that it was so cool to be able to just ‘turn the dial up’ on something we already did,” Mazon said. “Plus, the Christmas party is adults-only, and this was a really awesome way to incorporate the kids from the neighborhood.”

Plus, she has a title to defend.

“We have something to prove for next year,” she said with a laugh.