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This past Oct 13 and 14 the New Jersey Lighthouse Society, for the second straight year sponsored the “New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge.”
Lighthouse buffs from around the nation attended to enjoy a weekend of lighthouse visitations. At the first lighthouse they visited people were given an event card and their first visitation stamp. As they traveled from lighthouse to lighthouse within New Jersey their cards were affixed with stamps with antique photographs of the lights. At the eleventh lighthouse, in addition to the photo stamps they were awarded a stamp inducting them into the “Eleven Points of Light Club” and their names were put into a drawing for lighthouse memorabilia.
A total of 568 people completed the trek to all eleven lighthouses. They came from seventeen different states. More than a dozen people completed the trek in one day, and no speeding tickets were reported. More than 12,000 visitations were made to the eleven lighthouses that weekend. The longer hours and betters directions for participants seemed to make a difference with this years challenge. All lighthouses reported record visitations and sales in their gift shops. Even before the statistics were in, Tom Laverty, President of the New Jersey Lighthouse Society, said, “We are definitely on the map with this event!”
“This kind of success comes as the result of a lot of planning and hard work on the part pf a lot of people,” said Rick Weber, coordinator of the Challenge. In his final report, Rick informed the committee that a total of 2,300 volunteer hours were worked on the weekend and this does not include the planning stage. Next years New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge will take place Oct 19 & 20.
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