WEYAUWEGA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Police lights lit up the city of Weyauwega Thursday, but not the way you might think…
Officers are putting on a Christmas light show and for a good cause.
For three years now, Officer Justin “Griswald” Malueg and the Weyauwega Police Department have put on the show.
Officer Malueg’s house is the “North Pole PD” headquarters, but neighbors on his entire block have agreed to participate, partly because…
“Well, this year I don’t think they had a choice!” Malueg said.
Malueg tells FOX 11 he made sure of that.
“I volunteered myself to put up all the lights for all my neighbors. We originally just had the two neighbors, and then I decided to ask three more, and they all said yes, and offered to buy some lights, so I went and put them up.”
The display of over 50,000 lights has raised thousands of dollars and attracted hundreds to the area.
“Hundreds, if not maybe even thousands, of people come through here, over the last three years,” said Malueg
The light show helps bring in donations to the department’s Handcuff Hunger food drive. Those end up at a local food pantry and, this year, in Weyauwega schools.
Weyauwega-Fremont School District principal Jodi Alix tells FOX 11 there’s definitely a need.
“We have students that would come and ask us in the office for food, and it wasn’t that they were coming necessarily for a treat or a snack, they we just saying, ‘Hey, I’m hungry.’
Before the pantry was created, it was a challenge to try to fill that need at their own schools.
“We were scrambling through our own lunches, the concession stands…just to find something to give them,” Weyauwega school resource officer Heather Degrand.
Officer Malueg says this unique food drive gives the community a chance to see officers in a new “light,” outside of their jobs and also gives people the opportunity to help put hunger in handcuffs.
The Weyauwega Police Department’s main food drive is Saturday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., but officers do take donations and power up the light show for the whole month.
