Willesden Green Festive Lights 2025
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim
To light up our High Road and Walm Lane through the winter months in collaboration with our businesses for enhancement and community.
Thank you for taking the time to visit this Crowdfunder page for our Willesden Green Festive Lights campaign. Join our community to raise funds to support beautiful light-filled shop windows along our High Road and Walm Lane throughout the dark winter months, from October to March (not just December!). During this time the Willesden Green Town Team, in collaboration with our committed and hardworking businesses, shops, cafes and restaurants, will be telling the stories of our servies, our cultures, festivals, faiths and communities encouraging celebration with light and love for our neighbourhood. Find out how we plan to do this below.
And if you want to get involved, get in touch!!!!
Who are we?
The Willesden Green Town Team is a completely volunteer-led not-for-profit communiy group registered at Companies House. We are a group of committed volunteers who are passionate about contributing our time, skills, energy and positive ideas to make our neighbourhood a great place to live. We have been working to support Willesden Green since 2014. See more about the projects we work on by visiting our website. Learn all about the work we do to bring more greenery to our area and how we worked this year with a local school.
We love Willesden Green and want it to thrive. Will you help us?
Willesden Green can be the jewel of Brent and North West London. Our High Road and Walm Lane are exceptionally well-positioned, enjoying the huge advantage of being just moments from two Jubilee Line stations, with Willesden Green lying in Zone 2. With outstanding connectivity, central location, and effortless access from all over London, we are perfectly placed for success, let's light up our neighbourhood with FESTIVE LIGHTS and make this winter beautiful this year!
Why do we need this project?
In the UK ‘Christmas Lights’ in the high street is a popular tradition loved by communities & shopkeepers alike. Decorative lights are welcoming, they create a beautiful, uplifting and festive ambiance for a community. But, in Willesden Green our community is so multi-cultural that Christmas lights would not be very inclusive and they have been so difficult to arrange due to lack of budget, complex arrangements and lack of collaboration. So we have an idea that brings our shopkeepers together and will transform our streets (both High Road and Walm Lane). Please join with us to make it happen and donate to support this project.
How will it work?
We will be lighting up our streets (High Road and Walm Lane) with decorative/festive lights from INSIDE the shops. Participating shops will be given free festive lights to install and collectively will be lighting up their windows between 18th October 2025 and 28th March 2026 (between 4pm-10pm). Between those dates the following celebrations occur and we will celebrate them ALL: Diwali 20/10, Bodhi Day (Buddhist) 8/12, Channuka 14/12, Winter Equinox 21/12, Yalda Night (Persian) 20/12, Christmas 25/12, Chinese New Year 29/1, Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr 17/3-20/3, Chet (Sikh New Year) 14/3, Spring Equinox 20/3 finally ending on 28th March the weekend before our clocks go forward again to welcome Spring 2026 (please let us know if we have missed any of them).
This project won't just bring lights and ambiance to our high streets, but it will help us to support our traders, shopkeepers and businesses, bringing them together to make our high streets even more welcoming as the winter months arrive. Our shopkeepers are a big part of our community and they have so much to tell us and share with us. Times have been very tough and this is our way of supporting them and our community.
We already have so many (50+) shops signed up and more want to participate!
Here is what some of our shopkeepers are saying about this project:
“Fantastic idea! One which we will be grabbing with both hands. This will brighten up WG throughout from Divali, Christmas to Eid. Great initiative.” Charles, Willesden Green Businesses Association, Hot Stone Spa, 19 High Road
Sparkle O’Hara (the award-winning unique party and evening dress shop in Willesden Green) hardly needs any more sparkle, but owner of this highly unique retailer, Fiona, says “We absolutely love the idea of these festive lights for Queen’s Parade and the area. We have all tried for many years to find a way to light up and add a little sparkle to our own magical corner of High Road and Walm Lane. Colourful festive lights, create such a great attraction and make it feel so special. Thank you Willesden Green Town Team for this initiative. Good luck with the fundraising, we are right behind you”.
Cavallino has been in Willesden Green since 2023 and already adorn their window with decorative, attractive lights to draw in the community and are right on board with us. "We would love all the shops and restaurants to get on board and add festive lights to their windows. Festive Lights show we care and together we can create a real spectacle for our community. Thanks to the Town Team for this initiative - we are really thrilled to participate in this project".
What more will take place? We will tell the story of our cultures and communities.
The Willesden Green Town Team will help our community celebrate our many cultures by telling the stories of our participating shopkeepers on our website, publicising the Festive Lights Campaign throughout the life of the project (18/09 to 28/03). AND, if we raise the money we need, we will also host a launch party with live music for our community.
If you recognise this as an opportunity to create something beautiful in our community/high streets (High Road and Walm Lane), then please come and talk to us and support our activities and planning.
Donate towards this Willesden Green community engagement and enhancement project and let us know how you can help to make this a community celebration to shout about! We are so proud of our Zone 2/Jubilee Line neighbourhood and our hard-working shopkeepers and businesses, so join us and let's get going!! Please help us raise just £7,800 to pay for the lights + a launch party for the 18th October.
Festivals we can celebrate and support
By setting our campaign dates between Saturday 18th October 2025 and Saturday 28th March 2026, we are able to celebrate even more of our cultural festivals (and let us know please if we have missed something):
Diwali (20/10/25)
Bodhi Day 1/12-8/12/25
Channuka 14/12 - 22/12/25
Winter Equinox 21/12/25
Yalda Night 20/12-21/12/25
Christmas 25/12-26/12/25
Chinese New Year 29/1-12/2/26
Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr 17/3-20/3/26
Chet (Sikh New Year) 14/3-13/4/26
St Patrick's Day 17/3/26
Spring Equinox 20/3/26
Saturday Lights Down 28/3/26
This project successfully funded on 23rd October 2025