GE donation lights up Carousel of Smiles restoration project

SANDPOINT, Idaho — Good things truly are being brought to light for the Carousel of Smiles, thanks to a donation of several hundred lightbulbs by General Electric to the Sandpoint nonprofit.

"We just didn't have it in our budget to even figure out how to buy them," carousel co-founder Reno Hutchison said. "This donation is a such a gift."

The donation is the result of an email by carousel volunteer Ken Keeler who reached out to GE after seeing a notice on a lightbulb box on how to contact the company.

Realizing the carousel would eventually need lights as the original lights burned out or broke, Ken Keeler reached out to GE to find out where the nonprofit could find them in bulk.

While the bulbs could be purchased at local stores, finding enough bulbs to outfit the entire carousel was proving to be a challenge. Roughly 430 lightbulbs are needed to light the historic carousel, from the inner and outer rims to those surrounding the faces and artwork decorating it.

"I wrote an email to the address on the (lightbulb) box to see if they could get a discount and where we could get them," Keeler said. "Could we get them directly from them?"

He sent along information about the Carousel of Smiles, including its website so they had information about efforts to renovate the 1920s era Allan Herschell carousel.

Three weeks went by and Keeler figured the email had ended up at the bottom of someone's inbox.

After doing chores, Keeler checked his phone and saw he'd missed a call.

"I think we can do something for you," Keeler said he recalls the GE representative saying in the voicemail. "We want to give you the lights because we like your project."

He immediately called Clay Hutchison, co-founder of The Carousel of Smiles along with his wife, Reno.

Clay Hutchison called the GE officials and learned they wanted to donate LED lights which closely resembled the carousel's original lightbulbs.

Keeler had told the pair for over a year that they needed to make a decision on lightbulbs due to an upcoming visit by National Carousel Association members.

"I think he got tired of waiting for us and just took matters into his own hands and contacted GE," Reno Hutchison said before chuckling. "It's just incredible and we would never have thought to reach out to them."

The Hutchisons said GE officials said they normally do not fund projects but, intrigued by Keeler's email, looked into the Carousel of Smiles and its efforts to bring the historic carousel back to life.

When he called, Clay Hutchison said he thought they were just letting him know about the options available for the carousel.

"Well," the woman told him. "This has already gone through committee and we're ready to ship these out to you. We just need to know where to send them."

In total, GE donated 456 LED lightbulbs, enough to replace every lightbulb on the carousel and allow for spares. The high-tech lightbulbs are energy efficient and should last up 13,000 hours — almost a year and a half if left on around the clock.

While not an exorbitant expense, the Hutchisons the amount was significant enough that a decision was put to the wayside.

"I think the beautiful thing about that is that it gives somebody who only has maybe $5 to donate an opportunity to do something for the project," Reno Hutchison said. "I think that's cool."

At roughly $10 to $11 a box, the donation totals more than $1,000 — not an insignificant sum for a nonprofit.

"Any nonprofit has to prioritize what you're spending money on at any given time given your needs," Clay Hutchison said. "Putting lightbulbs in wasn't necessarily a priority and more of a down-the-road kind of thing."

Work on restoring the carousel is about 90% complete with 30 of the horses completely done, another several in the primer stage and others in the woodworking stage. Artwork panels are being completed, from inset panels to a 56-foot-long mural showing the history of North Idaho.

The Hutchisons bought the carousel in 2000, fulfilling a lifelong dream of Reno Hutchison. Growing up in Butte, Mont., she'd fallen in love with carousels after her first ride on the Columbia Gardens' carousel. When that carousel burned down in 1973, she was devastated and dreamed of finding a carousel of her own.

When the Hutchisons learned what would become the Carousel of Smiles was up for auction, having been found in two cargo trailers left abandoned in a Kansas field, it was a chance to make that dream come true. After winning the bid, they moved the trailers to a storage facility in New York, moving them to Sandpoint in 2016 when city officials envisioned making City Beach a year-round destination for locals and visitors alike.

Fewer than 200 wooden carousels from the golden age of carousels, roughly the period from the late 1800s to 1930, still exist out of more than 3,000. Of those 200 or so, even fewer are in original condition and intact with their ponies and mechanisms. Soon, Sandpoint will join that list.

Information: thecarouselofsmiles.org