EVANS CITY — After floods destroyed the borough's supply of holiday decorations earlier this year, a band of festive residents took it upon themselves to keep the Christmas season alive, and this Saturday at 1 p.m. the group will be decorating it for the holidays.

Stacy Lang, group organizer, first heard on social media that there might not be borough decorations this year and set out to do something about it.

She found pages online full of folks lamenting the lack of holiday decorations this year, she said, and decided that if she could find enough people willing to get involved, they could get something up in time for Christmas.

“We started talking about, 'Is there something we can do?'” she said. “It kind of went from there. I started a fundraiser, people started depositing money and other people started coming up with ideas. There are around 30 people who are actively involved. We've got about 10 people so far firmly committed.”

Residents and organizations in town contributed time and resources to help the group stockpile decorations, raise money and coordinate their beautification efforts.

“Evans City Lions Club is going to be the repository,” she said.

Anyone looking to donate to the efforts can send checks there with “Evans City Christmas Decorations” in the memo line.

Mayor Dean Zinkhann pitched in as well, spreading the word and helping the group find places to store decorations.

“It's not much, but it's some pines and lanterns and stuff like that,” he said. “It's just a start for something big I hope for next year.”

The group won't be able to raise enough money this year to replace all the decorations that were destroyed, Lang said, but they have collected enough donations to start decorating the town.

“We've collected $750, but it's going to take well over $5,000 to replace all the decorations,” Lang said. “We're viewing it as a kick-off for a yearlong fundraising effort.”

That $5,000 would be the bare minimum to decorate from the railroad tracks to the Westminster Presbyterian Church, she said, but her group is looking to do more than that.

“We'd love to decorate the whole town,” she said.

The group is meeting at 1 p.m. Saturday by the Christmas tree to set up the decorations around town. Volunteers are welcome to stop in.