AN ONGOING EFFORT — With help from Brooke High School welding students and city crews, volunteers who assembled assorted Christmas wreaths to be displayed along Main Street, Follansbee, have extended their effort further north, adding 16 to the 100 they produced last year. -- Warren Scott

FOLLANSBEE — With its streets and plaza decorated with wreaths and figurines by volunteers and city crews, Follansbee is prepared for a Christmas light-up program to be held at 6 p.m. Saturday.

The Brooke Middle School Band will be part of a small parade to the Ray Stoaks Plaza across from the City Building, where the program will be held.

Members of ReFocus Christian Church, formerly Follansbee Church of Christ, will offer prayers and music.

Santa Claus will be on hand to visit with children.

In recent weeks, city crews have been seeing that the plaza and other areas of the city are decorated for the Christmas season.

And part of that effort has included the hanging of more than 100 wreaths assembled by volunteers led by Linda Tomaino and Darlene “Dee” Boniey.

Last year, the group stepped forward after electrical problems with streetlights along Main Street made it difficult to display the city’s traditional star-shaped Christmas decorations.

After raising more than $5,000 for their effort, the group purchased boughs, ribbons, bulbs of various hues of red and green and other materials for 100 wreaths to be hung along the street.

Tomaino said this year, another 16 have been added northward on the street thanks to the help of Brooke High School students.

She said when it became difficult to find the right type of brackets for the additional wreaths, she learned students in Larry Jones’ welding class were able to produce them.

It’s not the first time vocational students from Brooke High School have loaned their skills to a local Christmas observance.

The lighted ball that drops onto the Wellsburg Town Square each New Year’s Eve also was produced by vocational students at the school.

Tomaino expressed thanks to the students and their instructor for their efforts while also acknowledging city crews for their role in seeing the city enters the holiday season with the right spirit.

“Our city crews are the best. They work very hard,” she said.