Celebrate the Magic of Christmas in Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou!
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November 26, 2023
Leadership Terrebonne 2023 has officially brought back community projects!
“Leadership Terrebonne has done some projects in the past, but overtime that went away–we wanted to reintroduce our projects again this year so that our groups can work to make a lasting impact on the community,” explained Karen Schilling with Leadership Terrebonne. “We divided the class up into four groups, and each one picked something in the community they wished to do and created a project to help out.” Check out the other Leadership Terrebonne Projects, Rock Da Boot and Light Up Downtown Houma, and how they’re already helping improve the local community.
One Leadership Terrebonne group decided to bring Christmas cheer to downtown Houma, creating the mission to work with local small businesses to install Christmas decorations on Houma’s bridges, the new Rotary Centennial Plaza, the bandstand, the arch, and more during the month of December.
“For our project, we decided to work on finding Christmas decorations for downtown in partnership with the Houma Downtown Development Board— since virtually all of Houma’s decorations were lost in Hurricane Ida,” said Shantelle Abshire, leader of this group. “We thought that with all the recent efforts to move the parish forward, this would be a great way to bring festivity during the Christmas season.”
Abshire explained that this Leadership Terrebonne group applied for and received the Houma Development Grant and a Houma Travel Grant, alongside existing parish funds set aside for holiday decorations, to make this project possible. Abshire also said that it was very important to their project to support local businesses when it came to making, or acquiring, the decorations for downtown.
“We decided to go to small businesses around town to find our decorations, and our largest decorations are made by the Houma Float Rental Sales and Rentals,” said Abshire. “They are the local company who build all the floats for our local Mardi Gras. We thought it made the project extra special to make sure the decorations came from local makers.”
The Christmas decorations that will be featured downtown include 7-foot-tall gingerbread men, a sleigh, a Christmas tree, and a snow machine, which will be installed on December 2, 2023, and will go off every 15 minutes on weekends from 5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
Other members of this Leadership Terrebonne group include Sulma Reyes, Carley Prejean, Jamie Luke, Latoya Walters, Kelley Phillips, Quinn Pitre, and Brandon Breaux. Be sure to come down to downtown Houma this December to check out the Christmas cheer!
