Leisure World Residents Donate Lanterns for 'Seven Nights of Light'

Silver Spring, Md. – For the third year in a row, Leisure World of Maryland’s Wood Shop User’s Group has built and donated lanterns to Washington DC’s Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land. To date, the Wood Shop Users Group has crafted more than 600 luminaries, and this year the group constructed 100 more to replace some of the older luminaries. The lanterns can currently be viewed by the public at the annual “Seven Nights of Light” event, held between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day and featuring some1000 wood luminaries covering the walkway of its Rosary Portico for a quarter mile.

This is the 16th year of the event, which serves as an important fundraiser for the church, as individuals can be celebrated by having their names posted on a lantern. Funds raised are used to maintain the gardens at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land.

Two years ago, the group was asked by the monastery’s Garden Guild to help out the church and build 300 lanterns. The project was a big success and the church has continued to look to Leisure World of Maryland for help.

In past years, the luminaries were built as part of a shop-wide effort, with 25 or more volunteers working at any one time throughout October and November. Due to the craftsmanship exhibited by the Wood Shop User’s Group, fewer lanterns need replacing, and so resident Leroy Salazar has taken on the construction of the luminaries as his personal project. He and a small number of volunteers have been working on the luminaries throughout 2015, to fill this year’s order of 100 luminaries.