COLLEGE STATION, Texas — For seven weeks a year, Santa’s Wonderland draws in thousands across the Brazos Valley — Texans come to check out the millions of Christmas lights that light up HWY 6 during the holidays.
This helps generate enough money to give back to the surrounding community — especially to help first responders.
“Even though this is a small rural community, there’s a real strong sense of community," said South Brazos County Fire Chief, Mike Montgomery.
"It involves partnerships with our business communities, Santa’s Wonderland being one of them, and others throughout the area as well."
Since 2019 emergency service entities like the South Brazos County Fire Department have been funded in part by the sales tax generated from businesses like Santa’s Wonderland while in operation.
Lynn Elliott, Chairman of the Emergency Service District said volunteers were seeing up to 700 calls a year, a demand hard to meet without the steady funds.
“We called for an election, and the voters of the south end of Brazos County said 'Yes', and that gave us a revenue source. Without that revenue source you wouldn’t see that nice truck or that one we’d still be driving tankers that are more than 20 years old," Elliott said.
Before this steady stream of revenue, it was up to the community to keep emergency services operating.
“It was always a challenge, we would have fundraisers over at the community center and everyone would come to contribute, they knew what it was for and we did that for a period of time," Elliott said.
The money helps fund future growth, from turning part-time employees to full-time staff and 24-hour coverage that is soon to come.
Montgomery says the improvements come a step at a time.
“We rely on each other to make this a better place to live and have our families be," Montgomery said.