Registration is still open for annual BPU Holiday Light Contest

Home City News Registration is still open for annual BPU Holiday Light Contest
Registration is still open for annual BPU Holiday Light Contest
BPU Director Chris McArthur awards employees from Nash Drugs with the First Place Prize for the business category in last year’s Holiday Light Contest. Courtesy | Olivia Jones

Residents in Hillsdale won’t need to decorate their homes like Clark Griswold to register for the Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities’ Holiday Light Contest. With the Christmas season quickly approaching, BPU is giving residents an incentive for decorating their houses with its annual Holiday Light Contest.

BPU will award three prizes to both business and residential sections in the form of a credit toward their next BPU bill: $100 credit for first place, $75 for second place, and $25 for third place. The main requirements to qualify for these prizes are that residents need to enter the contest and must be a current BPU customer.

Olivia Jones, an assessing technician at BPU, is in her first year managing the project and said she’s excited about the contest. “It’s a way for BPU to go out and see the customers that it supplies energy to,” Jones said. “I think it’s really important to see who you are dealing with and to get to know faces and names.”

To enter, residents must submit their name, address, and phone number to ojones@cityofhillsdale.org or via phone at (517) 437-6455 by Monday, Dec. 2. 

Jones will take pictures of the decorated houses on Wednesday, Dec. 4 beginning at 5:30 p.m. And the community will decide the winner by the number of likes each photo receives on the City of Hillsdale Facebook page. An official public viewing will take place on Dec. 10 from 6 to 9 p.m. and voting will be open from Dec. 9 to 13. The contest will conclude with the announcement of the winner on Dec. 18.

Hillsdale BPU Director Chris McArthur said this event is a great way to give back to the community. “Being a public power utility, a lot of people don’t realize that we are a nonprofit,” McArthur said. “Your rates coming into us pays for operating and the rest goes right back into the community and the system.”

Jones also said she enjoys collaborating with community members because it helps citizens build a relationship with governmental workers. “I think that it is important for us to collaborate with the community members because it makes us more realistic people. Being more personable with the people is very important so that they become comfortable with coming us for other needs that the city does provide,” Jones said. “It shows them that we are people as well and that we can have a little fun during the holidays.”