Treat Your Family and Friends to a drive through Ability Point Lights

We visit with Kevin Fish, Ability Point's Executive Director, about the he 27th Annual Ability Point Lights on St. Paul, at the corner of St. Paul and Douglas. Open nightly at 5:30. Just 10 dollars a carload, and Mondays are “donation only.” All proceeds go to fund programs for the developmentally disabled at Ability Point. Get into the spirit of the holidays with One Million Festive Lights!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Wichita on weekend, theweekly public affairs program from iHeartRadio Wichita ninety
seven, ninety ninety eight, WellO two won the Bull Channel ninety six
three and Alt one O seven three. It's back again for the twenty seventh
year. Ability Points Lights at SaintPaul formerly Lights at Saint Paul, but

(00:21):
it's ability Point Lights and it isthe wonderful drive through Christmas light display that
you've got to take your family tobecause not only is a great time for
everybody in the family, kids ofall ages, but it helps raise money
for ability Point. And we havewith us today in the studio Executive director
of ability Point, Kevin Fish andalso mister Lights for the month of November

(00:45):
and December. Right, it isand it goes on a lot more than
November December. We work in along time, but we're so excited it's
here. They're on and love tohave the crowds come out and join us.
Now, how's it been going sofar? You know, we start
a little slow because of the snowstormcoming in streets a little bit icy.
Thanksgiving night was fantastic, so westarted well before the weather moved in.
But we know this is the pointwhere people started getting in the spirit,

(01:08):
and hopefully we'll start seeing the crowdsroll through and even with a little bit
of snow on that the right amountof snow on the ground makes it perfect.
Yeah, exactly. Quite honestly,I love it because you know,
the lights glow a little extra comingoff that snow. It makes it even
more beautiful and really puts you inthe Christmas spirit. All right, Now,
let's lay the nuts and bolts outabout your open every night. Yeah,

(01:29):
we open nightly at five point thirtyand on the weekends we go till
ten o'clock Friday and Saturday school night. Sunday through Thursday we close at nine,
and we do have extended hours onChristmas Eve, so that way,
if you're doing the evening service andstuff, you can come out till eleven
o'clock on Christmas Eve. But wewill run through December twenty eighth. So
once you've got all those packages openedon Christmas, you still got a couple
days while the family's in town.Say hey, guys, let's go check

(01:52):
out some Christmas lights. So loveto have you come. Well, you
know how it goes when family isin town, Relatives, friends, and
you're looking for something fun and enjoyablefor everybody to do. You're all in
the Christmas spirit, this is thebest place to come. Yeah, you
know, and quite honestly, Imean it's pretty financially to eat feasible.
You know, we're talking ten dollars, so you know, you can't hardly
do anything with the whole family forten bucks anymore. But on Monday nights

(02:15):
we do it purely by donation.So if we do have a family who
can afford ten dollars but once tocome enjoy the lights, come join us
every Monday night for just donations.Now I read somewhere or maybe I heard
somewhere the number one million. Yeah, in terms of lights, we've got
one point six million lights, soit kind of grows a little bit more

(02:37):
every year. We added the tallesttree in Kansas this year, so it's
about eighty five feet tall, andso it takes a lot of lights to
light all that up. Wow,and eighty five foot Christmas tree. Yeah,
it is amazing. And luckily Iwas not the one at the top
of that tree putting all the lightson there, but they did a phenomenal
job. Wow. Now, speakingof the folks that install all this that's

(03:00):
a huge undertake, it is,and it's all volunteers. We have just
amazing group of volunteers, many ofwhich are family, some of our self
advocates, people who grew up inour programs, and they just they love
the mission, why we're doing it, and so they give so much time
and energy. Because we started backin August testing lights, building new displays,

(03:22):
i mean, we've been working onit for a long time to get
ready. And you know, again, that's one of those things that make
this so unique is there's a wholelot of handmade displays. I mean that
eighty foot five foot tree. Agroup of volunteers designed it, came up
with the idea how they're going tomake it work, and then went up
and put all those lights on therefor us. Wow, I'm impressed,
and I'm grateful to those hard workingindividuals that come out and help out Ability

(03:45):
Point. You know, and justlike you had helpers for the install,
you're also going to need some volunteerhelp when it's all over and it's time
to come down. Yeah, Sowe use volunteers every single night while we're
open, so we do have someopportunity there. So again, if you
come to abilitypoint dot org to ourwebsite to learn a little bit more about
the lights, there'll be a placethere that you can check out our sign

(04:06):
up genius if you'd like to comevolunteer. But yeah, just as important
at the end, when we've gotto take it all down, we're gonna
need another army to come and helpmake that happen. But we're not going
to talk about that right now.We're going to talk about coming out tonight.
We're coming out any night this holidayseason and really spending some time.
Now this is all contained on theability Point campus. Yeah, well,

(04:29):
and actually it starts at Douglas andSaint Paul's Okay, so two blocks down
the road, and so they'll comeup. Our office is sitting on the
corner of a second in Saint Paul. So you come up two blocks,
wrap around our building, and thenwe've got a tunnel of lights you go
through which connects to our neighbors atthe Independent Living Resource Center next door,
wraps around their building and on theway out. So it started out just

(04:50):
on our campus, but we've grewdown the block and to our neighbors next
door, and so it really isan enjoyable ride, and you know,
we encourage families early right now thatthe lines are a little slower, so
you can really enjoy your time comingthrough, but come often come back and
see us multiple times through the season. So the actual entrance is Douglas and

(05:11):
Saint Paul, Yes, okay,and that's the way to come. So
either from the east or the west, come on Douglas to Saint Paul Street
and head north on Sat. Youcan't miss it. You'll see all the
lights right there on the corner.And again some wonderful neighbors who are helping
us light up using their yards insome cases, which is just again,
it's a phenomenal thing. And youknow, a great neighborhood display. Yeah,

(05:33):
I imagine the neighborhood around there mustlove this, I hope. So
you know, it gets pretty hecticas we get closer to Christmas and the
lines to get a little longer drivingpast your drive. But they've been wonderful
and you know, we communicate withthem an awful lot, so they kind
of know when the busy times are, so that's probably not the time to
make a run to Dylan's. Right. Outside of that, it's been great.

(05:56):
Oh that is wonderful to hear AbilityPoints Lights Sway seventh annual Ability Point
Lights on Saint Paul and they aregoing on through is it December December twenty
eight, So you've got time andby all means, plan to come more
than once, definitely, you know, and every dollar you drop in the
bucket, it goes to our programs. We've got great sponsors who cover all

(06:19):
the costs of the new displays andthe electricity, so everything you're putting in
the bugget, we're able to putdirectly into programs. We do about three
hundred events or activities a year,so we've got a lot of things going
on serving the families that we serve. We'll serve about two thousand individuals annually,
and that's both youth and adults.We're one of the few organizations that
do serve both youth and adults,and so people literally grow up in our

(06:41):
programs. But at those three hundredevents, nearly one hundred of those are
either free or very low cost,and this is what helps make those possible.
So we're able to provide scholarships fora lot of our programs, be
able to just provide some amazing offeringshere. Just a few weeks ago we
did the Thankful Feast. We hadeleven hundred people that came for a Thanksgiving
dinner wow and with some wonderful friendsat Crossroad Church who prepared all of that

(07:03):
for us. And then we endedwith a dance, which is always a
great party with our group, andso everybody had a wonderful time. But
it was a great kickoff for aholiday season. Oh, Ability Point does
fantastic work. Three hundred and sixtyfive days a year, all those I
can't believe you guys do three hundredevents a year. We've got so many
things. Again, between youth andadults, you know, there's just always

(07:24):
something. We've got mentoring programs inthe schools, you know, and again
it's about helping our individuals to feelpart of our community, right and letting
them see that you know, theyhave the same hopes and dreams. You
know. One of the biggest challengessometimes there's somebody with the disability is the
community's perception of what they can andcan't do. And so the more we're
building their confidence to do stuff inthe community, we're also providing awareness in

(07:46):
the community. And so we haveseen some tremendous thing happens. We've got
so many of individuals now who arewho own their own homes, drive their
own cars. You know, they'reworking in our community, they're you know,
they're giving back. We've got somewho are married, have their own
families, and again, stuff youprobably wouldn't have seen thirty years ago.
We've just seen tremendous growth in acceptanceand inclusion for individuals and that's something we're

(08:07):
wanting to continue to do. Andyou know, we're one of the largest
targeted case management providers in the state, and that's where we're able to help
connect somebody with the resources they needin the community to reach that independence,
whether it's finding a job, youknow, whether it's through one of our
other agencies that we work with,or living at whatever level they can live,

(08:28):
whether it's in a group home settingor if they have their own apartment,
our home, and so again,our case managers are phenomenal. We're
one of the fastest growing case managementproviders in the state because people love what
they're doing for individuals, and sowe have about seven hundred and twenty five
individuals in just that program between Sedgwickand Butler County. Do you Is it

(08:48):
proper to say that an individual graduatesfrom the program. Yeah, So our
Summer YES program, for example,is a educational backed program, so we
have an educational component. So theymay graduate from a ESS program because they've
graduated from school and kind of movedin and they just sort of transitioned then
into some of our adult programs.So you know, it's great. You

(09:11):
know, for example, I mentionedthat Thankful Feast, we had so many
individuals now who are thirty forty fiftyyears old who were in the S program
thirty five years ago, you know, back when they were kids and to
just have those longtime relationships. I'vebeen lucky enough to be with the organization
for about twenty eight years, soI remember them as kids and getting to
see them as adults and really justliving their dreams and so it is just

(09:35):
phenomenal to see that. And butwe couldn't do any of that without the
community support. It's kind of likefamily. It really is what you have
going there at ability point. Andjust remember listeners that when you come to
Light's at ability point, every dollargoes back to ability point and the work
they do in this community. Sothat's got to make it feel even better

(09:58):
about spending ten by Carlos exactly exactly. And you know, we have so
many people that you know, theybring their ten dollars and you know they're
giving us twenty and say, hey, keep the change. We know where
it's going, we know it's important, and we greatly appreciate that because again
it goes above and beyond for whatwe're able to do because so many neat
experiences. You know, one ofthe things we started here ten years ago
was our Misunstoppable pageant, which isjust phenomenal. And again it's giving these

(10:24):
incredible experiences somebody getting up on thestage getting to compete. You know,
they watched Miss Kansas, Miss Americaand they have that dream and aspiration.
We've heard that from a number ofour girls, and so they do the
interviews, they do the evening gownand the talent and and again the girls
that come back here after year,you see them just grow in so many
ways and they just get to shineon the stage. But again, it

(10:46):
was a vision to somebody saying Iwant to give these girls this experience.
And again it's through community support we'reable to make it happen. And we
have some wonderful people that come inand make these girls dream come true,
and then they represent us throughout theyear in a variety of things. So
a wonderful representative from right here atI Heart came out and judged for us
this year and helped pick a wonderfulwinter. But it was a fantastic time.

(11:09):
I had a great time. Thanksagain for inviting me. That's it's
a wonderful experience. If you're everinvited, whether to be a judge or
to be a volunteer to help out, I heartily encourage you to do so.
Because his smiles all around, coupleof happy tears, lots of happy
tears, and you know, andthat's one of those things. It just

(11:30):
warms our hearts. And you know, I usually hang out in the back
because I don't want people to seemy ugly cry if I start getting emotional
and stuff, because again it isa family, and so every one of
those girls when they have their moment, I mean, it can't help but
warm your heart. Yeah. KevinFish, executive director of Ability Point Mister
Lights we call him this time ofyear because he's kind of the ramrod I

(11:54):
suppose you could say of Ability PointsLights, there come by and see us
Douglas, some Saint Paul editor there. Bring a little money, bring a
little extra money, that's right,Bring the family and come and enjoy.
Yeah, like I said, comeearly and come often, because I mean
we're continuing to even kind of finetune some things. So as we go
through the season, sometimes we liketo add a little bit. We've had

(12:16):
some people who donated some additional displaysand so it's like, hey, we're
going to find a home to addthose in beyond our big eighty five foot
tree. This year we added anI Love ict section and so we've got
our own keeper of the Planes,and we've got a little tribute to the
air capital of the world with someairplanes and such, take an offline around
it, and we've even you know, our friends over to OJ Watson Park

(12:39):
always do their Polar Express event,and you know, we've been partners with
them for forty plus years and sowe got a little Polar Express train for
O. J. Watson Park inthere. So you know, it's just
been a neat way to get toget the highlight because again that the community
has really come together to make whatwe do possible. So my suggestion is
you begin to make this your newfamily tradition. Definitely start a new annual

(13:01):
tradition. Come check this out.You will not regret it. You'll have
a great time and everybody would bewanting to come back before you know it
exactly exactly, And like I said, it is unique because of the displays
that were built by volunteers. Sowe hope everybody comes and enjoys it and
tells their friends. All right,that's the corner of Saint Paul and Douglas
open every night five thirty just tendollars a car load. Monday's donation only,

(13:24):
and of course all the proceeds goto fund programs for the developmentally disabled,
addability point one million, festive lights, one point six one point six
one point six. So we've beenso blessed with so many people, but
love to have people come and getinvolved. It's also a great outreach for

(13:45):
us because there's a lot of familiesin the community who may not know what
all we do, and they mayhave a loved one in need, and
so gives them a chance to getconnected with us a little bit. And
everybody that comes through, we givea little bag with some candy canes and
a little information about the organization,so that way, again, if they
know somebody in need, we'd loveto be able to reach out to them
during this holiday season as well.Can't wait to be there, Kevin.

(14:07):
Thank you so much for being withus today on Wichita Weekend. Mister Kevin
Fish, executive director of Ability Point, We'll see you at the lights.
Thank you for listening to Wichita Weekend, a service of iHeartRadio stations one O
two won the Bowl, Channel ninesixty three ALT one oh seven three and
ninety seven nine B ninety eight.Listen every Sunday for Wichita Weekend.