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Port Moody man lighting up a 'dark pocket,' thousands of Christmas lights at a time

Less than a day after sharing his Gofundme page, Jeff McLellan had reached his fundraising goal to deck out the Port Moody Station Museum with Christmas lights.
Sarah Payne
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An already decked-out Jeff McLellan with his daughters, Madison (left) and Emily (right), will be decking the PoMo Museum, Venosta and anything else he can get his hands on thanks to an outpouring of support from the community — and a great deal on lights from Coquitlam's Canadian Tire.

For years, Jeff McLellan has been pondering ways to add a bit of Christmas cheer to a corner of Port Moody; all he needed was a bit of help to do it.

Little did he know that so many people would jump on board so quickly, with cash donations and offers to help deck the Station Museum in festive lights.

It took less than a day for word of McLellan's Gofundme page to spread and to reach the $1,000 goal to purchase lights, extension cords and timers, so McLellan bumped it up by another $500 (and was just $65 short by Thursday morning).

"I've been blown away," McLellan said of the community's response. "This is such a dark pocket, it would be amazing to have the trees, the Venosta, everything lit up."

Jim Millar, the museum's executive director, was similarly surprised.

"I think it's great, the community support Jeff's got for it; it's wonderful."

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With nearly 5,000 lights already purchased McLellan was to begin setting up the tree wraps on Thursday morning in the hopes that commuters would see a brightened stretch of Murray Street by the time they were heading home.

But with the Evergreen Extension opening McLellan is already thinking of how the light display could be expanded, inspired, in part, by a recent trip to New York.

"I walked 80 km in three days and saw all these lights going up and I thought, 'Why can't we do that here?'"

There could be lights leading transit users from the Moody Centre station across Rocky Point Park (where the ice cream shop is already bedecked) to the museum, or lining the Moody Street overpass and the museum-hugging loop, McLellan suggested.

And if the businesses along Murray Street joined the fun it could even become a destination, much like McLellan remembered touring the Christmas lights in Vancouver as a kid, and could serve as a bookend to the Lafarge Lake lights in Coquitlam.

"It would give people a reason to come to this part of Port Moody at this time of year," McLellan said.

• The lights are expected to be up by Dec. 10. Anyone wishing to donate can visit www.gofundme.com/murraylights.

spayne@tricitynews.com
@spayneTC