Photograph by Paul Myers

Donna Collins, owner of Henrietta Hen's Country Store, has spearheaded holiday decoration of the Village in recent years. New funding from the Chamber of Commerce will boost her efforts.




Chamber's decoration funding draws support from merchants

By Oakley Brooks

Veteran Saratoga business people rallied in support of a recent Saratoga Chamber of Commerce decision to fund decorations in the Village.

The Chamber agreed to put $7,000 toward decorative wreaths and springtime banners, the brainchild of Donna Collins, owner of Henrietta Hen's Country Store on Big Basin Way. Collins started her decorating efforts in the Village more than seven years ago and will now head the newly formed Village decorating committee within the Chamber.

Collins took issue with former Chamber President Preston Wisner's recent comment that spending the Chamber's money on decorations was inappropriate. Wisner made the comment after announcing his resignation and after former Executive Director Patti O'Brien and Executive Assistant Barbi Leach left the Chamber late last month.

"I don't understand what he means," said Collins. "I have a business here, and I want the town to look beautiful."

Wisner was not available for comment last week. Newly elected Chamber President Jean Funari declined to comment on the issue.

Collins began the decorating campaign in the mid-1990s because she wanted the Village to light up at night, the way she remembered it being illuminated many decades ago. After hanging lights around her own store between Third and Fourth streets, she started offering to put up lights for other business owners for a nominal fee.

Collins also began helping local business owner Bob Critchfield with his annual hanging of holiday wreaths. Two years ago, she decided the wreaths needed to be replaced. In 1999, Collins first put red bows in their place and then began to collect money from merchants for new custom wreaths from Sierra Displays.

The Chamber agreed to put up $500 toward new wreaths for the holidays last year and other merchants pitched in as well.

Collins did get the new wreaths up, but she came up $1,500 short in paying for them.

Some of the recent funding from the Chamber will go toward the debt to wreath designer Sierra Displays. The rest, according to Collins, will purchase more wreaths and spring banners to hang in the Village.

The synthetic wreaths are about 40 inches in diameter and decorated by red bows and pine cones; Collins said they cost $60 each, and she hopes to have 55 up in the Village this winter.

She's shooting to have 50 floral banners--at $80 apiece--up in the Village next spring.

Any leftover funding will be spent on replacing light bulbs on trees.

The city of Saratoga is proposing a more comprehensive lighting plan that would involve it taking over decorative lighting in the Village. But several Village merchants showed support last week for the Chamber's decision to fund the decorations.

"Anything that beautifies the Village and makes it an unusual place is good for the business climate," said Miles Rankin, a Village Realtor for nearly 40 years.

Rankin, also a past president of the Chamber, said Collin's decorating efforts belong under the umbrella of the Chamber and not as an independent venture. Up until a year ago, Collins had collected money from individual merchants on an as-needed basis.

"The Chamber is where she belongs," said Rankin.

Other merchants said the Chamber-funded improvements will make the area more attractive to business owners considering a move into the Village district.

"Who would want to come here the way it looks now?" said Lillian Benson, of Benson's Antiques.

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