Merry March, Wichita! College Hill prepares to spread joy through Christmas lights

Anyone who knows commercial broker Jake Ramstack knows that his default demeanor is a peppy one, so it’s no surprise to learn that he’s leading a crusade to bring back Christmas cheer amid worries over the coronavirus.

“We’re going to light up College Hill,” said the North Yale resident, who works at InSite Real Estate Group.

He’s already enlisted a number of elves to help spread the word that everyone at Christmas Central, which College Hill is known as during December, and beyond should put back up their holiday lights.

“Let’s just have some fun,” Ramstack said. “I think we just need more light during this dark time.”

He immediately contacted Cooper Hanning, who helps organize light tours of College Hill.

“I think it was a brilliant idea,” Hanning said.

“People love hanging out in College Hill. People enjoy walking around.”

He said this is about “giving them something to see, something to do.”

However, he’s not suggesting any official light tours.

Hanning’s family is already planning to put up other decorations.

“We’re an inflatable family.”

Last week, Ramstack and his friend Dorian Graham, a resident on Pershing, started talking about how to identify elderly people in College Hill who may need help during this time.

“The lights are part of the way to do that,” she said. “A lot of times older people don’t put them up due to challenge and expense.”

Graham said houses that remain dark could be an indication of who may need help.

“It gives us a way to go, hey, let’s go knock on that door.”

She and her children plan to distribute flyers about the lights throughout the neighborhood, which she said can be another way to find elderly people who may need help.

“You just feel so scared and so isolated,” Ramstack said. “I’m worried about people.”

Graham planned to turn on her Christmas lights Wednesday night.

Since it’s a challenge to place lights on the tile roof of her two-story Spanish Revival house, Graham confessed she never took them down after Christmas.

“We’ve been prepared for this situation unknowingly.”

She said a friend of hers down the street plans to put candles in her windows and luminarias in the front of her house.

Pershing’s trademark colorful PVC pipes, or “sticks” as residents refer to them, also will begin making a return.

“Our people are obsessed with them,” Graham said.

Michael McDonald of ICTlights.com said some national lighting groups have been discussing rehanging Christmas lights.

“The more people talk about it, it seems to make sense,” he said.

He said he can move employees over from sister businesses to do the work.

Hanning said he’s reaching out to as many people as he can to crank up Christmas.

“I’m hopeful more people will participate. . . . It would be a blast.”

Ramstack said why limit it to outside decorations?

“If you’re stuck inside the house, you can decorate for Christmas,”

He recommends rolls of toilet paper as stocking stuffers.

Ramstack said he hopes neighborhoods throughout Wichita turn on their lights.

“We need some joy in this time,” he said. “We just need to get out and go look at Christmas lights.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 2:24 PM.