Each holiday season, over two million lights illuminate the paths and trees of Wildwood Park & Zoo, accompanied by animated displays, synchronized holiday music, horse-drawn wagon rides, and both walking and drive-through routes. Residents and visitors show up even on Wisconsin’s chilliest nights to see the spectacle—now a tradition for hundreds of households. Rotary Winter Wonderland is open seven days a week, four hours each evening, from late November through New Year’s Eve. Guests are invited to make a monetary donation or bring non-perishable food items for the benefit of local food pantries, rather than paying admission. Donations to the Marshfield Rotary Foundation, which includes a fund held at the Marshfield Area Community Foundation, keep it glowing. Thanks to the continued generosity of many attendees, the event just celebrated its 20th season.
In the last two decades, Rotary Winter Wonderland has collected more than 900,000 food items, supporting approximately 31 food organizations across the region.
Rotarian and Event Coordinator Al Nystrom emphasizes the pride for community support: “For a small town to put 1,000 volunteers together every year to make this happen, and then to support it so generously — it’s a very special place to live and work.”
Rotary’s commitment to building partnerships has allowed for sustained impact and expandability. Winter Wonderland has drawn virtually every corner of Marshfield’s civic life into either volunteering for or sponsoring the event. While Marshfield Rotary supports the event through connections to coordinators, dedicated setup days, monetary donations, and assistance with major volunteer shifts during the season, local businesses, neighbors, families, schools, nonprofit organizations, and Wildwood Park & Zoo all participate in the project.
Local sponsors (most investing annually since the beginning) cover the costs of material repair and replacement as well as overhead costs. The sponsors cover the majority of the event’s operating costs, so more dollars donated at the gate flow directly to food pantries.
Setting up alone requires daily commitment from groups starting as early as October. That’s a tall order, as daytime setup competes with most work schedules. Local businesses not only made room in employee schedules for volunteering but also provided paid hours to support the cause, allowing 190 total employees to assist with the physical setup of the display each year—transformative for the program. What once took five weeks to construct now comes together in three. Lead volunteer teams like the “Senior Elves” who focus on food packing and direct connection to pantries and “Tinkers”, the team responsible for year-round light and equipment repair, can focus on major tasks, keeping the program on track.
Thanks to a dramatically more efficient build process, the core volunteer team opened the 2025 season one full weekend early, dedicating all donations from that opening weekend directly to St. Vincent de Paul and Soup or Socks to meet urgent community needs during widespread concern about disruptions to SNAP benefits. Supporters showed up. The past holiday season produced $50,000 in checks to partner organizations — a milestone made all the more meaningful given the heightened food insecurity many families faced this year.
An Invitation to Carry Light
Rotary Winter Wonderland welcomes new hands, new energy, and new ideas at every level. Beyond donating to the Marshfield Rotary Winter Wonderland Foundation, Rotary is eager to grow its roster of year-round volunteers, especially those physically capable of setting up and tearing down in the fall and late winter. Active retirees and community members with flexible schedules are particularly encouraged to reach out.
“There’s a passion for this project you’ll see in the volunteers,” Nystrom reflected. “It’s kind of a contagious thing — you want to do more of it the more you taste it. It’s great camaraderie for a great cause.”
You too can support Rotary Winter Wonderland:
- Volunteer — Reach out through the website or social media to join a work crew, a build day, or a seasonal shift
- Donate online — Visit rotarywinterwonderland.org to make a direct contribution to food pantries.
- Bring your business — Contact the team to organize an employee volunteer day during the fall build-out
- Purchase a children’s book — Mary’s Bright Idea, a children’s book written by Marshfield Rotary Club member Ben Bauer and illustrated by local artist Kylie Ganther, made its debut with the 2025 season. The story follows a young girl named Mary as she experiences a magical winter light show, where she discovers the joy of volunteer service, kindness, and helping others. Through gentle storytelling, the book encourages children and families to find small ways to make a big difference. Proceeds from book sales benefit both the local Marshfield Rotary Foundation and The Rotary Foundation. Mary’s Bright Idea is available for purchase at marysbrightideabook.com, at Kailey’s Kandles & Company in downtown Marshfield, and select other local shops (with a copy also available to borrow at the Marshfield Public Library).
The Marshfield Area Community Foundation is proud to celebrate this milestone alongside our Rotary partners and wishes them continued success in the next 20 years.
