Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A) Board Member Nancy Pryce was walking into a board meeting at the Shipley Office early one morning. Looking up at the beautiful sky that morning, she noticed the rainbow that sits above the outside entrance. At that point, a light bulb went on in her head.
Pryce walked into the meeting and announced C&A should do a fundraiser to raise money and the visibility of the agency. Her idea was to have people purchase light bulbs and attach the light bulbs to the rainbow. She was friends with Steve Coon, who owned the Central Trust Building at the corner of Market Avenue and Tuscarawas Street. He agreed to hang a painted wooden rainbow with light bulbs on the side of his building.
“The bulbs were numbered and placed on a painted wooden rainbow,” said Pryce. “The idea was over time the light bulbs would burn out. The bulb that stayed lit the longest would be the winner. But we soon discovered light bulbs can stay lite for a year or longer.”
Physically, the original light bulbs have burned out. But the light has been shining brightly on C&A’s Let Your Light Shine fundraiser for the past 19 years, where the agency has raised more than $800,000 through this event.
Pryce said the first year the event was at Brookside Country Club, where the painted rainbows and lights were displayed. She said the initial committee was Mark Spaner, former C&A CEO Mike Johnson, a couple other people and herself.
Pryce, who served on C&A’s board from 2001 to 2010, first crossed paths with the agency when Mike Johnson went through Leadership Stark County, which Pryce ran. After Johnson completed the program, he asked Pryce to join C&A’s board.
Today, the agency’s visibility and this event continue to grow and the light is shining brighter than ever.
