Each year Dale Marks turns his house in Des Moines into an incredible Christmas light display in a bid to raise money for Iowa Food Bank. It’s a neighbourhood tradition.
This year was almost the end of the tradition as Mr Marks was too weak to put up his incredible display but a luckily friendly stranger did it for him.
For many Decembers, people have travelled to Beaverdale by carload to marvel at the Mark’s family Christmas display.
This incredible effort isn’t just for the benefit of the viewers but for those less fortunate a well. They put bins at the end of their drive asking passersby to donate any money or food for the Food Bank of Iowa.
Dale Marks said, “We made over 28,000 meals in cash for the food bank last year, and that’s just an amazing feat,”
Unfortunately, this year Dale suffered two strokes and a heart attack so he wasn’t able to put the lights up himself.
Bob Coffey, the owner of local construction company Bob the Builder LLC, heard the sad story from a friend and had to help. So he rounded up a bunch of volunteers and they installed thousands of lights for Dale, a man they’d never met before.
At the end of the installation, everyone laughed as Dale plugged the two cords together like Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”.
Bob said seeing Dale and Julie Marks watching from the porch made it all worthwhile and “The memory of that afternoon will last a lifetime,”.
“When we got done, I just told him to have a great night and to take care of himself, and he cried. I cried … It was pretty awesome.” said Coffee.
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