Teen Turns Holiday Trash to Treasure by Transforming Broken Christmas Lights into Dazzling Charity Display
Andrew Reid, 19, set up the impressive holiday light display at his Long Island home using items that had been thrown away
FOX 5 New York/Youtube
Ried's impressive light displayA New York teenager is spreading holiday cheer in an inspiring and sustainable way this Christmas.
For the fourth year running, Andrew Reid, 19, has constructed a giant dazzling holiday light display at his East Northport home in Long Island. The display uses only old decorations that had been thrown away, per News 12 Long Island.
This year’s display, named “Misfit Island Christmas Spectacular,” is Reid’s biggest yet — featuring 100,000 lights and over 500 decorations donated by the community. The project aims to raise money for Ronald McDonald House which provides housing for children battling pediatric cancer and other serious illnesses.
“I love to help people out,” Reid told the outlet. “I'm going to school to be a paramedic. And I like to make people happy, everyone knows that, so I was like — why not do a display and raise money for kids with cancer as well."
Footage shows every inch of Reid’s home covered in colorful, bright lights, with figures of Santa and snowmen along the path.
Reid began his annual tradition during the pandemic in a competition with his family who discovered the holiday décor dumped near their home, per the New York Post.
“I saw this polar bear,” he told the outlet. “I couldn’t pass up on it. I took it home, tinkered around with it, was able to fix it up and it became easy after that.”
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The student subsequently taught himself how to fully refurbish holiday decorations and established the yearly tradition.
“I was able to figure out how electricity works, how positive and negative works, how the neutral works on all these things,” he said. “Now, just seeing it, I know the problem with these wires: what not to touch ...It just comes easy to me.”
And this year, the 19-year-old is calling for visitors to get involved by adding an ornament to his “Misfit Tree."
"If anyone wants to bring their Christmas tree ornaments they could put it on the tree and then your ornaments will be part of my display, and you could see it every year," he told Fox 5 New York.
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