The JDRF Northwest Chapter has been partnering with Sheraton Seattle Hotel for more than 20 years to produce the annual Gingerbread Village fundraiser event. Architects and pastry chefs work side by side in confection construction to raise funds for type 1 diabetes research. By the end of the elaborate display’s six-week run in the lobby of Sheraton Seattle, the event will have raised upward of $50,000 for the local JDRF.
But pulling off a holiday event of this magnitude isn’t all candy canes and sugarplums. In fact, Sheraton Seattle Assistant Director of Meeting and Event Management Leslie McKenzie’s advice for pulling off a highly coordinated effort is not unlike holiday shopping: Start early.
She says the two organizations begin planning in the summer by choosing a theme. By the end of July, McKenzie and her staff have already ordered Santa hats for the choir that sings on Gingerbread Village’s press day, as well as additional ropes and stanchions to maintain the ever-growing lines of visitors who stop by the village each year. “We start coordinating with JDRF to make sure we’re on the same page,” McKenzie says. “Or at least reading the same book.”
The theme of 2014’s event was holiday songs, with gingerbread houses inspired by tunes such as “Mele Kalikimaka” and “O Christmas Tree,” says Nadine Heichel, executive director for the JDRF Northwest Chapter. The six architectural firms that designed the gingerbread houses for 2014 made their song selections in August. Once the theme was selected, the architects began working on design concepts, often going through many different ideas before settling on ones they loved.
Each year, the creations are remarkable in detail and construction. In 2013, for example, one firm built a gingerbread house based on a ship, which required crafting a motor that would rock the edible masterpiece back and forth. The motor needed to work continuously for the month and a half that the Gingerbread Village was on public display, so the architect built the motor in his garage and left it running for weeks to make sure it would be up to the task.
Decorating the intricate designs begins in November. Under the guidance of Sheraton Seattle’s pastry chef, each firm works alongside an assigned “elf”—a child with type 1 diabetes appointed by the JDRF. “The designs easily take hundreds of hours and, in some cases, thousands of dollars to construct,” McKenzie says.
McKenzie estimates that in 2014, between 125,000 and 150,000 people visited the Gingerbread Village, which opens to the public each year in the week of Thanksgiving and runs through the first weekend of January. Crowd control is critical, especially the first weekend after Thanksgiving, when people flock to downtown Seattle for holiday shopping, she says.
After that first weekend, McKenzie has a better idea if she has enough signs, ropes, stanchions and staff to make it through the following five weeks. “It’s a good test to see how we’re going to make it through the holidays,” McKenzie says. Adding to the crowds are the hotel’s many holiday galas it hosts, so staff members will modify the lines during big events and busy weekends. “It’s a long time to stand in line,” McKenzie says. “Sometimes on the weekend, people stand in line for up to an hour. Keeping the lines going and interacting with [the people] are key. We don’t just let the lines go.” Sheraton staffers and JDRF volunteers pass out candy canes and chat with the waiting guests. The Sheraton’s A/V team also posts a few TVs along the route to play holiday films that relate to the Gingerbread Village theme.
Teamwork is a huge part of the event’s success each year, whether it’s a concierge leaving his or her post to interact with the crowd in line or the hotel’s culinary staffers staying after their shifts to adhere candies to slabs of gingerbread. “It can be daunting like anything because people put so much into their jobs” McKenzie says. “There’s that sense of responsibility.”
But, for McKenzie, it’s all worth it come press day, when they commemorate the opening of Gingerbread Village with a ribbon cutting while a local choir, wearing those Santa hats she ordered back in the summer, kicks off the festivities. “Even I get kind of teary-eyed,” she says. “It makes you feel like you’re starting the holidays off right.”
