Dennison buys giant toy soldiers to display next Christmas
DENNISON (WJER) (Jan. 2, 2024) – As this holiday season wraps up, village officials are already looking ahead to the next one.
Mayor Greg DiDonato returned from North Carolina last weekend with an army of human-sized toy soldiers.
“New River Pottery in Wilmington, North Carolina, the owner has decided to retire, and I was able to work out a deal with him. I actually brought ‘em back in a U-Haul, got ‘em loaded and here to the city building on Saturday. They’re on our lower level right now.”
Dennison is now the proud owner of 13 army men figures, each hand-painted on fiber-glass and standing 6-feet tall.
“The toy soldiers just really make sense because of the Polar Express and the history of the military also because of the canteen in World War I and World War II.. We’re gonna work with the schools. We’re gonna work with our local businesses to try to tie them in with some of the businesses downtown, put them out on the sidewalks, kind of like if you go to Steubenville with the nutcrackers.”
The retail price was around $10,000, but the village ended up paying about half that. DiDonato says the money came from the $500,000 donated toward downtown improvements including new benches, planters, trash cans, and street markers.