EVANS CITY — On Christmas Eve — from the Evans City Elementary and Middle School through downtown and up the hill to St. John's United Church of Christ — 1,000 luminaries made from gallon jugs will again light the way through the borough.

The luminaries are a gift to the community from the Evans City Rotary and several community members. The tradition is celebrating its 20th year.

“It's a wonderful tradition,” said Cheri Deener-Kohan, a Rotarian. “People have driven far and wide to come see it.”

Around 4:30 or 5 p.m. Christmas Eve, Rotarians and others light flares and walk the road to light the candles. Deener-Kohan said the candles typically burn into the wee hours of the night.

“The rewards are the people who say it looks so nice,” said John Cashdollar, a retired Evans City science teacher. “That's why we do it.”

The luminaries are made from gallon milk jugs collected from people in the community. Deener-Kohan said people used to throw empty milk jugs over the fence into her yard, and she would cut the tops off to create the luminaries.

Cashdollar collected them from his students while he was teaching and made new ones each year. Now they try to reuse as many jugs as they can.

The jugs are filled with sand to weigh them down and have plumbers candles placed in the middle. It's always been a community effort to pull it off each year, Deener-Kohan said.

Only twice in the past 20 years have the luminaries not been lit on Christmas Eve, she said. One year the candles would not stay lit in a heavy rain, she said. And a few years ago, a powerful wind storm made it too dangerous to put the luminaries out.

Deener-Kohan, Cashdollar and his family and others will be out around 1 p.m. Sunday placing the luminaries along the road. Deener-Kohan said they plan to continue lighting up Main Street for the foreseeable future.

“It's pretty and it's just because,” she said. “We want to be unique and nice and do something for the community.”