By Edward Hacala
If you have taken a walk or a drive down Great Road on the night of Christmas Eve, you have most likely seen the hundreds of luminaries lining the edges of the road all the way from the businesses on North Road past Willson Park and the Bedford Common down to the Domine Manse.
These luminaries benefit the Bedford Minuteman Memorial Scholarship Fund which sells luminaries each winter in order to raise money to help a Bedford student pay for their college education.
I have been involved with the luminary setup for nearly a decade, and although most people wouldn’t think of folding paper bags, scooping out sand, and walking up and down Great Road with a lighter as the kinds of activities that remind them of the holiday season, the lighting of the luminaries has become somewhat of a tradition for me.
I first started helping with the setup of the luminaries about ten years ago when my father and I were put to the task of placing luminaries around the border of Willson Park. At this point, we had not yet figured out the process of laying the luminaries and because of it we spent several hours out in the cold climbing snowbanks, filling bags with sand and attempting to light candles with numb hands. In more recent years, the weather has not improved greatly, but we have learned to do the majority of our work inside the comfort of our home, and even the hour or two spent placing and lighting the luminaries in the cold has become familiar.
For the past two years, we made it even more of a family tradition by employing the help of my sister Isabel in the setup, distributing and lighting of the luminaries.
Setting up the luminaries on Great Road is a big job, and our family isn’t the only family involved. Peter Secor, his sons Maxim and Hunter, and their neighbor Dan Hurwitz have set up their half of Great Road for nearly a decade as well. In the center of the Historic District, the homeowners set up and light their own luminaries, and Tim and Karen Brown have graciously taken over the setup of the luminaries at our old stomping ground, Willson Park. Without all of their help, it would be a daunting task.
I am now in college and my time in Bedford has lessened. When I am home on my winter break, I still continue to light luminaries each year for the sake of tradition and for the sake of helping future college students in Bedford obtain their education. Two years ago, I was fortunate to receive the Bedford Minuteman Memorial Scholarship and I hope that the scholarship fund continues to help students obtain their education just as it helped me.
Click this link to learn how to purchase luminaria to light your home or your neighborhood
Editor’s Note: Edward Hacala is now a sophomore at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts
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