If becoming a Guinness World Record holder is on your bucket list, here’s a chance for you to cross it off. The Light Up State College project is rallying the community to create 3,000 ice luminaries and bring them to downtown State College on Saturday, which would break the Guinness Record for the largest ice lantern display.
Brad Groznik is a member of The Make Space, a community workshop in downtown State College.
“We’re hoping to turn Allen Street into a winter wonderland," Groznik said.
The Make Space's co-founder John Stitzinger says an ice luminary is one small thing that all of the community can make.
“We wanted an event that would get the community interested in "making," and this was something everybody could do,” Stitzinger said.
Stitzinger said he always wanted to do something with ice and light and has known about the world record for a while. The idea was set in motion after the ice luminary project won a Knight Cities Challenge Grant in 2016.
“Light Up State College is the chance for the community to bring a couple of ice luminaries that they freeze in their freezers downtown on the fourth of February, on Saturday, from 2 to 5 p.m.," Stitzinger explained. "Stay around or come back at 6 p.m. and see us break the Guinness World Record for the number of ice luminaries in one location at one time.”
The current world record is 2,652, held by the residents of Vuollerim, Sweden. The goal for Light Up State College is 3,000. To reach that goal, Groznik has been working on getting the word out.
“We have the kits distributed all around downtown, mostly on Allen Street. So Schlow Library, Discovery Space, Launch Box, New Leaf, Appalachian Outdoors – they have these kits available. All you have to do is go in and sign it out,” Groznik said.
The luminary kit comes with a big plastic tub, a small pill bottle and a glue dot that will attach the bottle to the lid of the tub.
“So you fill up the big container with water, you put the lid back on with the pill bottle stuck to the top of it, and then you just freeze it," Groznik said as he demonstrated how to use the kit. "When you pop it out, it’s going to create a nice luminary.”
Groznik said he hopes people will start freezing away once they get the kit, since it takes about 24 hours to make one ice luminary.
The organizers said at first they didn’t know how the community would respond, but soon enough they embraced the idea. According to the event website, people have committed to making more than 2,000 luminaries. Some local businesses are even helping to hand out luminary kits.
Sheridan Sheehan is the marketing coordinator of State College Orthodontics, one of the businesses supporting the event. She helped incorporate the event into the reward points system for her customers.
"So what we’re doing is if you take a kit, we will give you 25 reward points,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan said the rewards point system is their way of keeping the customers engaged, and Light Up State College offered another opportunity to do so.
“When they walk in and they see them, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of that.’ They are really excited to take it – you don’t even have to ask if they want it.” Sheehan said.
With just a few days left for preparation, Light Up State College awaits its big record breaking moment on Saturday, which they’ll videotape for verification.
“We are going to submit an unedited, five-minute video profiling all of the ice luminaries that we have, so – I think – that Guinness can sit there and count every single one of them,” Groznik said.
It will take several weeks for the Guinness to make the record official. But the organizers believe the event is about more than breaking a record.
“I think there’s a lot of pride and love for State College, in this town, and there’s not a lot of opportunities to show that," Groznik said. "I think they are always looking for other ways that we can all come together and do something as a community. I think that’s why we are seeing so much enthusiasm for something like this.”
Groznik hoped community members would come and see if they break the record on Saturday night at 6. Luminaries should be dropped off between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday.
