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Lighting up for the holiday
Electrosystems Electric Inc. has its own tradition: donating lights to families who can't afford them.
By Jenny Mardee, Independent

Six-year-old Chelsea Ermel was scared that Santa Claus wouldn't find her house if it had no Christmas lights.

Chelsea's fears were caused when she came home last Thursday to find colored icicle lights outlining each window and bright red bows and snowflakes dotting the walls.

Electro Systems Electric, Inc. decorated homes for 11 Surf City families this year. For four years now, the electric system company has been supplying strings of lights and labor to elderly and low-income residents who can't afford their own decorations.

"For me personally, this is a really hard Christmas," said Chelsea's mother, Lauralen Ermel. "But to come home every day and see the building lit up, it really helps us to get into the Christmas spirit."

The Downtown Huntington Beach apartment building is home to the single mother and their children, Ermel, 31, also said the lights help to quell the stigma associated with the low-income building.

"It's nice for [neighbors] to have something to look at, too, and know we're not the dregs of the earth," said the single mom. "The lights go a long way to break that image."

Mitch Cottrell, president of Electro Systems Electric, Inc. is always surprised by how much people appreciate the gesture.

"We thought that it would be something nice to give back to people that needed something," Cottreell said. "Most people can't believe we're doing it. To use, it doesn't seem like that big of a thing.

Cottrell pays $300 to $400 to purchase and install lights for each home.

The demand for deocrations was high this year, and local stores were running short on the biggest holiday craze—icicle lights. But Cottrell didn't let that stop him.

He gathered his employees and taught them how to fashion homemade icicle lights.

"We bought extra lights and made them icicles," Cottrell said. We doubled them up. It took about an hour or so."

They also bought and installed cup hooks to make it easier for homeowners to install their own lights in the future.

"I hope that people like them," Cottrell said. "These things that we're doing for people will maybe inspire them to do something for someone else."