Decorating Day
More Holiday Cheer Appears in Park
For those of you that travel up and down Seneca Avenue, you may be familiar with a house that has wooden characters adorning the lawn. Rick Weber has crafted holiday characters, Buffalo Bills characters and others as a hobby throughout the many years. He met with GOACC early in 2009 with an idea to create and donate three wooden one dimensional characters for Santa Claus Lane. His initial concept was for three characters such as a holiday elf, a mouse, and a moose. 
Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce (GOACC) connected with Zane Garman at Home Depot and Nate Smith of Worth W. Smith to see if their companies could donate the materials to Mr. Weber for these community decorations. They gladly agreed to a donation of more than $350.00 in plywood, paint and other supplies.
Mr. Weber took the materials and not only created the three initial characters but two penguins, a tree, two small angels, one larger angel, a snowman, and a reindeer! These handmade characters, located in Lincoln Park, have places to put faces for a person to take on the appearance of the character.
“GOACC appreciates all Mr. Weber’s hard work and time to create these characters for the children and all to enjoy in Lincoln Park. It’s great having two local companies assist with the continued expansion of decorations and lighting of Santa Claus Lane!” stated Meme K. Yanetsko, GOACC Chief Operating Officer. The Santa Claus Lane committee is always looking for more decorations and lighting to light up Olean. These characters in Lincoln Park join the 50 foot Welcome to Santa Claus Lane sign; lights and garland on the pavilion in War Veterans Park; and the snowflakes on Main and South Union Street bridges as new decorations for 2009.
More than 50 Volunteers Help Decorate the Park and More than 40 Organizations Help Decorate The Flower Baskets and Barrels
Santa Claus is expected in Olean less than 14 days from now, but Saturday, November 7, he had more than 50 volunteers assist with putting up the decorations in Lincoln and War Veterans Park, in Olean. Seventeen organizations assisted with the decorations: Girl Scouts; Cattaraugus County Association of Realtors; Ryan and Andy Wheeler ; Archbishop Walsh Academy; Home Depot; Dennis Jones; Rick Weber; the Olean Rotary Club; City of Olean; Old Navy; the Southern Tier Military Support Group; Olean Exchange Club; City of Olean Youth Court; Jared McCarthy; Etta Walker; Olean Community Schools; and Anne and Andy Carlson.
Santa’s elves decorated the parks by: lighting up Santa’s cottage; placing cone shaped trees; setting up Rally in the Valley Santa, the rocking horse, Seasons Greeting sign; 8 reindeer, Santa’s train, snowmen, twelve arches, triangle trees; lighting up the gazebo; four foot high wreaths; and placing more than 150 strands of lights on bushes and trees.
Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce and the Santa committee also invited groups, organizations, school classes to ‘adopt’ a basket and a barrel along Union and State Streets and decorate them. 
The City of Olean provided the holiday pine boughs and the Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce the holiday bows. Most of the ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN baskets and barrels were adopted by the following groups, individuals and organizations: Acme Business Machines; Alex and Liz Whipple; Angee's Restaurant; Ask Design Jewelers; Beef ‘n’ Barrel Restaurant; Chamberlain Realty; City of Olean; Community Bank, NA; Dance Arts; Enchanted Mountain Quilt Shop; Five Star Bank; Fox Financial; Green Acres Cafe; Ivers J. Norton Elementary; In Focus; Ink Well; Jared McCarthy; Jamestown Community College Student Activity, Foundation, Alumni; John Ash Cleaners; Joyful Rescues; KeyBank; McCarthy’s Emporium; Mercy Flight; Montessori Children’s House of Olean; Olean Creative Mailing Service; Olean Fire Department; Old Library Restaurant; Olean Cycling Club; Paper Factory; Parent Education Program; Park Centre Development; Pizza Hut Wing Street; Ray's Barber Shop; Rainfresh Laundromat; Rotary Club of Olean; Southern Tier Catholic School; Southern Tier Agency/Century 21; Total Senior Care; Wendy's; and WMXO.
The City of Olean, Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce, and its Santa Claus Lane committee want to improve and stimulate the Olean community both economically and socially by providing the best “light show” in the Southern Tier. The holiday lights attract people from a 100 mile radius to travel to Olean for recreation, services, and shopping. The decorations will be lit up officially on Friday, November 27, during the 24th Annual Santa Claus Lane parade. For more information regarding Santa Claus Lane, please contact GOACC at 372-4433, stop in at GOACC, 120 North Union, Olean, or email santa@oleanny.com.