Kristian Agoglia has always enjoyed Christmas lights.
Agoglia, vice president of Looks Great Services and a Brooklyn, New York, native, said he was happy to be a part of helping downtown Columbia shine for the holidays.
Just before Thanksgiving, crews from Looks Great helped line the buildings along Main and Second streets in Columbia as volunteers and business owners decorated trees, hung wreaths and placed decorations around downtown. City crews, along with the help of volunteers, breathed new life into old decorations, which now line the streets.
“When I drive through Columbia, I’m reminded of my dad, when he used to decorate our house as a kid,” the Columbia resident said. “Every year he’d never miss that. It was something we always looked forward to as a family. Now, when I drive through town with my kids, I get to experience the same thing. There is something about Christmas lights that can’t be replaced. You only get one time a year to experience that and you don’t want to miss it. It’s good for my family, it’s good for other families and it is good for the community.”
“Over the last few years, it’s been a growing organism to make Columbia look really great for Christmas,” Nik Ingram, Main Street Columbia Inc. director, said. “One of the biggest benefits we have is Kristian and his company because they do this for a living. If you hand somebody a box of lights, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to look good when it gets finished. Where with his guys, they know what to do and how to do it. They’ve been doing it for so long that they had a really good input.”
Ingram said Main Street and the city of Columbia teamed up with a host of volunteers to make the lights happen.
“We were able to raise money and were able to stretch the lights out further and so many people have come together to help us, with the lights” he said. “One of those parts is Kristian because he and his company have donated their labor to put these lights up, and it’s not the first time that they’ve done this.”
Agoglia’s company was also featured last weekend on a national Fox News story for its help in decorating a veterans home in New York.
“Just like here, a lot of people still don’t know what he’s done,” Ingram said. “But here, you can see it in lights, literally. We’re so thankful for what he’s done and his caring for the community.”
Agoglia spoke about the Fox News story.
“The company does a lot of decorating in New York,” he said. “They have been doing that since 1999. They were approached by an organization that we are involved with to decorate a veterans home in Brooklyn. They decided that they wanted to do that and they became part of the story. They ended up in the studio talking about that. It was a good experience and a nice thing that they were able to be a part of.”
Ingram said more than $10,000 was raised toward the lighting, but that Looks Great played an integral role in the decorating.
“If we had to pay for all of that, it would have been more than $30,000 to have these kind of lights,” he said. “I think our decorations and lights downtown are one of the best around. I would put them up against anybody and we’re just getting started. Over the next few years, the money that we raise, the input that we have and people that come alongside with us will help it continue to grow.”
Pictured Above: Crews from Looks Great Services work to decorate the 35-foot tree at the Columbia Christmas Village with lights Tuesday. Looks Great crews placed the lights along the roof lines of all of the downtown buildings recently. | Photo by Mark Rogers
