Frank Picozzi couldn’t believe what he was seeing when he went to clean out donations for the Tomorrow Fund from the box in front of his home on Gristmill Road.
There was $30.
How could that be, he thought. Maybe someone had taken the money, but the box was securely locked. Never in the 12 years Picozzi has transformed his house into a spectacular digital display with lights dancing to Christmas music had there been less than $50 – most of it in one-dollar bills – for the Tomorrow Fund. Last year through the display, with additional funds from “yulings” – where people make donations to have an assortment of Christmas characters from elves to reindeers placed in the yards of friends – Picozzi collected nearly $15,000 for the Tomorrow Fund.
What happened? With nightly contributions way off, there would be no chance of even approaching half the volume of donation from last year.
“The weather has been terrible,” he said Friday. He’s canceled some shows because of rain. Even with good weather, Picozzi figured donations would be off 25 percent due to how late Thanksgiving was this year and the loss of a week before Christmas.
What he hadn’t counted on was the absence of the Christmas spirit. He just didn’t see it. He could count on 1,500 cars on Saturday nights, but soon after opening on Thanksgiving weekend there appeared to be only a couple of hundred, although he doesn’t keep count.
People weren’t in the mood for Christmas music, and if they weren’t parking to see the show they wouldn’t be opening their wallets to help the Tomorrow Fund.
Picozzi made it a cause to celebrate the miracle of Christmas and it is working.
As a rule, Picozzi does not enter his display into home decorating contests. He’s not out to win accolades and prizes. The reason Picozzi spends all year to synchronize the thousands of pixels, so they send hoops dancing across his lawn, trees swirling as they change color or snowflake starbursts above his roof, is because he likes doing it and Christmas is his thing.
But with donations lagging, these were desperate times.
Picozzi entered the B101 holiday home decorating, putting out the word on Facebook. With 4,600 votes, he was the winner of a $500 gift certificate. His plan was to add that to the pot of monetary donations, but when Gel Penta of Gel’s Kitchen learned of what happened, she stepped forward and bought the certificate. She wasn’t the only one to help.
Joseph Hoyle of J&S Auto was following developments on the Positive Warwick Facebook page. He donated $1,000 as a match.
In his extreme decoration quest, Picozzi has made friends across the country that likewise are fiendishly consumed by spending weeks and months programming lights to do extraordinary things. One of those people, Chuck Hutchings, who lives in Miami, picked up on the lagging Christmas spirit in Rhode Island. Hutchings has gone on to do other things and no longer programs his house, but he wanted to help. He posted a $2,000 challenge, which donors came close to matching. Hutchings still gave the $2,000.
Yulings weren’t doing well, either.
“We’re doing horrible,” Picozzi said.
That’s changed, too, thanks to Linda Drainville, an agent with Caldwell Banker Real Estate. She had been yuled last year by her neighbor, Phil Slocum, so she knew what to do.
Drainville started the ball rolling by yuling her own office. She said it put a smile on the face of her associates who generously opened their wallets. She raised $1,000 in an hour. Naturally, Slocum Real Estate was yuled, and from there it’s on to ReMax Advantage, Abbott Properties, Exit Realty and Homesmart. As of Friday, yuling had raised $1,550 for the Tomorrow Fund.
“You compete with each other,” Drainville said of the real estate community, “but we’re also one big family.”
Picozzi is heartened by the turn of events. Even letters to Santa – there’s a mailbox at the display for those – have picked up in the last several days. Last year, Picozzi personally responded to 500 letters. So far this year he’s done 200, but 80 of those were in one night last week.
Picozzi said he was starting to doubt in the magic of Christmas, and “now I’m believing in it.”