Little Brother J’Ro and Big Brother Renick thought the challenge was too fun to pass up – build a gingerbread house to enter the 30th annual Omni Grove Park Inn’s National Gingerbread House Competition.
“We thought it would be a fun way to collaborate on a creative project and build something together,” Renick said.
The gingerbread house competition began in 1992 as a simple way to observe the holiday season, according to the Omni Grove Park Inn’s website. Over the years, it has become a celebrated and competitive holiday event, garnering coverage in national media.
This holiday season, as in years past, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western North Carolina was one of the recipients of the inn’s paid holiday parking program – a donation BBBSWNC much appreciates. The Omni Grove Park Inn invited our Bigs and Littles to take part in the competition – and the fun!
J’Ro and Renick got to work. They decided to build a lighthouse. A gingerbread lighthouse.
Coming up with how it would look, and how to go about building it – that was the easy part, Renick said. Everyone pitched in.
J’Ro’s neighbor gave them a board to build their house on. J’Ro’s grandfather helped with the gingerbread wall construction. His grandmother gifted them a bunch of candy items to decorate with. His mother contributed lots of time and energy to help bring it all together.
“It takes a village to build something, even a gingerbread house,” Renick said.
The extra hands were especially appreciated because J’Ro and Renick’s finding the time and space to work on the lighthouse together got increasingly difficult as the competition deadline neared. But together, with all that help, they managed.
And they had a blast.
“It was a lot of fun to snack on the various candies and share some laughs along the way,” Renick said.
