Family Decorates To Honor Mom Who Loved Christmas BY CARLA CALDWELL
Christmastime was terribly hard for on their lights and handed out cookies Jeremy Smoot after his mother’s death and hot chocolate. More than $100 in 2007 from complications of lupus. She was donated. They were out again the loved Christmas and went all out every following weekend and another $100 Lights for Lupus/ year to decorate. was collected. Smoot Family Christmas Light Show Jeremy’s wife, Rosalind, started to By Dec. 31, $1,000 had been donated. 699 Autumn View Drive, Acworth, 30101 dread the Christmas season. “I knew The following year, $1,200 was collected. 5:30-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday how upset and down he would be,” she The goal this year is $2,000. Rosalind 5:30-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday says. “I knew we had to turn this around. estimates that about 500 people drove I was looking for ways to get his mind on by the first year and close to 800 in 2015. something else and to make Christmas a “The kids help add up the money happy time for him.” every night and we keep a running total,” Rosalind says. In 2013, the family moved to Acworth from Texas and “On Dec. 31, we go to the bank and get a money order and Rosalind went to work for Christmas Designers, which installs and drive to Smyrna, to the office of the Georgia Chapter of sells commercial-grade lights. It was then, she says, that “she put the Lupus Foundation of America. We set up a meeting so two and two together.” that the kids can present the check and someone with the Lupus Rosalind decided that the family should go all out to decorate Foundation explains to the kids that the money helps families. their home and yard and to give 100 percent of any donations “When someone with lupus (a chronic inflammatory disease) dropped into a bucket to the Lupus Foundation in honor of goes into the hospital, they can easily be there for seven to 10 Jeremy’s mother, Debbie Founds. days. If someone with lupus gets a cold, for example, it can turn “I grew up in New Jersey and it was a common thing if into bronchitis and be difficult to fight off. The money we raise can anyone did large holiday help pay someone’s setups they would take mortgage for a month, up donations for local fire or pay bills or buy and police departments or groceries.” other groups,” Rosalind says. “Jeremy grew up in Texas Left: Jeremy, Dylan, 11, and had never heard of Miya, 7, and Rosalind that. He thought it would be Smoot great to donate, but he was Below: Debbie Founds and skeptical. He had never seen grandson, Dylan. anyone donate because of a Christmas display.” In 2014, after getting approval from their homeowner’s association, the family advertised their Christmas display throughout the neighborhood and on Facebook. The weekend after Thanksgiving they turned
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TOWNELAKER | December 2016