Leisure World Residents Will Craft and Donate 100 Lanterns

Silver Spring, Md. – For the third year in a row, Leisure World of Maryland’s Wood Shop User’s Group is donating lanterns to Washington DC’s Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land. Over the past two years, they’ve built more than 600 luminaries, and this year the group will build 100 more to replace some of the older luminaries. The lanterns will be used for the annual “Seven Nights of Light” event, held between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, and featuring some 1,200 wood luminaries covering the walkway of its Rosary Portico for a quarter mile.

This will be 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, and nothing goes to waste.