Parksville’s Bethlehem Walk will be quiet this holiday season, but organizers hope to bring it back next year.
“For 20 years Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church has had the joy of presenting Bethlehem Walk in Oceanside,” lead pastor Paul Hawkes wrote in a news release.
He said they “looked at the human resources needed,” and were “unable to secure overall leadership for the event for this year.”
He said they considered the annual event an “opportunity to share the gift of Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ with our community,” but the congregation and volunteers will rest this year and start talking about the 2013 event again early in the new year.
As many as 10,000 people wandered through the biblical village last year where 250 volunteers brought the atmosphere to life in period costume demonstrating things like ancient baking and blacksmithing.
Admission to the village has been by donation to the food bank and last year visitors donated $12,000 and “many van loads of non-perishable food,” to the Salvation Army.
This year the Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church will donate their entire Bethlehem Walk budget to the Salvation Army and encourages to public to donate food or money directly to the Salvation Army.