LEWISTON, Maine — The holiday season is fast approaching, and the city of Lewiston has set up its Christmas tree for this year.
A 25-foot spruce was donated to the city and transported to Dufresne Plaza. It's the first step towards Lewiston's Holiday at the Plaza event.
City Arborist for Lewiston's Public Works Steve Murch says each year they look for a tree that fits the criteria of preferred height and fullness, but its accessibility is very important.
“Honestly, the first thing is accessibility. We get a lot of offers that are in backyards or are behind a garage and it’s just hard to get to with equipment and heavy trucks," Murch said.
This year, they had a lot of offers from people wanting to donate their tree but one after another, they encountered difficulties and they started looking at lists from previous years.
"We went to an old list that I had, you know, trees that were offered other years. I was looking at those. We went to look at one and the tree was cut down but this one was across the street, so we knocked on the door and asked the lady, Nancy, if she was interested. We have never met her before. Asked if she wanted to donate her tree. She said yes," Murch said.
Next week, crews will work to decorate the tree and it’ll be the centerpiece for Lewiston’s Holiday at the Plaza event on Dec. 2.
The event is free to attend and will offer activities like ice skating, live reindeer, and visits with Santa.
"We started this scale of a festival last year, and then this year, we certainly hope that this event will help folks on their path towards healing and helping to move forward in that direction. And we want to give them an avenue to come out and celebrate tradition," Angie Amores, the Lewiston director of marketing and communications, said.
"For what’s been going on, I think the expectation is that this will be a good one. It’ll be a lot of people trying to find something fun to do in the community so, I think there’s a lot of focus on it," Murch said.