MILTON — Deb Becker, owner of Boomerang Pizza Kitchen, and Cindea Coulter, owner of Camelot Junction, are selling Blinkie decorative lights hoping to raise money for more decorations in downtown Milton during the holidays.
“Decorations bring life to a town and they make everyone feel happy,” Becker said.
Coulter agrees.
“We want to light up the city,” she said.
Both businesses, located on Willing Street, are selling light sets, which also happen to be on display along Willing Street every evening from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. The Blinkies lights are developed out of Kernersville, North Carolina.
“We saw them in the middle of the night and we wanted to see what kind of bulbs they were,” Coulter said. “I found who was making them and they make them right there in Kernersville.”
Coulter and Becker have since become local distributors of the product.
“We are buying them wholesale and we are selling them to make the city some profit,” Becker said. “We are not making any money off of it; we are selling it to get more decorations out of it.”
For $35, a resident can purchase a set with $10 going to Milton’s Community Redevelopment Agency One. Becker hopes the collected CRA funds will go toward more Blinkie lighting downtown or towards more decorations in downtown. These lights and decorations could make the downtown area a seasonal attraction, she said.
“This could make us a destination for those who like to see lights during the holidays,” Becker said. “People could come from Pensacola to come and look at the lights.”
Both said the decorative lights are unlike the typical seasonal lights, which can be purchased in local stores.
“They look like fireflies, because of the distance between the lights are a lot more than the typical standard lights,” Becker said. “They blink sporadically like fireflies.”
While the lights are currently on display in downtown Milton, both Coulter and Becker hope they catch the attention of those attending the Milton Pumpkin Fest on October 29, from 6 to 9 p.m. Both said the lights can also be used during the holiday season.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Downtown business owners hope lights spread around town