Christmas light display south of McLean making a difference for mental health
A taste of ‘Hallmark movie’ in Southeast Saskatchewan
December 15, 2025, 11:31 am
Ashley Bochek
Ian Moats has created a Christmas display that brightens the nights this time of year for visitors, and brightens the days for mental health patients all year long.
Moats decorates his acreage with Christmas Lights and offers tours to the public to help fundraise for the mental health unit at the Regina General Hospital. Moats has been fundraising and donating materials and supplies to the mental health units for the past nine years since his daughter’s personal struggles with mental health.
“I live half of a mile south of McLean and I’ve lived there for 31 years,” he says. “I grew up on a farm just northeast of Regina and my brothers are still there, but there was too much family and not enough farm, and I just didn’t want to move to the city, so I picked an acreage by McLean. At that time, I went looking as far away from the city until I couldn’t afford it. I am a contractor by trade and co-owner of Innovation Renovations in Regina.”
Giving back
Moats has spent every other Friday delivering flowers to each patient at the mental health unit for the past nine years.
“My daughter had struggled with mental health and had been in the unit at the Regina General Hospital several times. There are two things that started it—the first thing is I deliver flowers to the unit every second Friday. It is 50 flowers, one for every patient in the unit and I have been doing that for nine years. That started because one of the times my daughter was there, and I went to buy her flowers and, on a whim, I went and bought her a whole pail and told her, ‘Take what you want and give the rest away!’ and just seeing the reaction from people getting a flower who weren’t expecting it, it was amazing and I was motivated to keep doing it. I worked it out with the hospital and haven’t stopped since.
“The second part is every time my daughter was there, I noticed in the common area where they can spend their free time they have games, puzzles, and colouring books. It was always the same stuff
“The game that was missing half of the pieces last time she was there was the same game that was missing half the pieces the next time she was there. As a term I heard, the basket of pencil crayons in the middle of the table looked like a long-time Sunday School class because there was six whites and a whole bunch of short and stubby everything else and that was what was there. So, I thought of the Christmas lights since I already had quite a few Christmas lights—all around my firepit on my property and we just thought one time, ‘Let’s have a bonfire and invite friends, neighbours, and family, and let’s ask for a donation and we will buy supplies for the mental health unit.’ That was nine years ago as well. The first year we raised $1,340. I remember it well because we just went out and spent the whole works on pencil crayons, replaced every single game, and everything in the common area. It all went toward buying things just to make the patients day better. That was the whole point of it—let’s just do what we can do.”
Friends of 1D
Moats says the Christmas Light tour continued to grow and has raised over $180,000 to the Regina General Hospital mental health unit.
“The next year we did it again and got a little bigger than it kept getting bigger and it has just grown and grown to where now it is open every night of the week in December from 6pm to 10pm and over those nine years I have raised $182,000 for the mental health unit. It all goes toward buying things for all of the mental health unit at the Regina General Hospital. My fundraiser is called Friends of 1D because it was all for the adult unit which is 1D in the hospital so that is where the name comes from. Now, that I have had some really good fundraising years in a row I do the same thing for the adolescence psychiatric unit and for youth detox which is in the hospital as well.
“It is pretty crazy to think how much we’ve raised for the mental health units. I never thought that I would’ve done this and continue to do it. What it does for me to be able to make a difference in there it gives me the warm-fuzzies.”
Christmas Light Tour
Moats decorates his acreage with about 140,000 Christmas lights and many displays for anyone to tour from 6pm-10pm each night in December.
“For the first year, since I already had some Christmas lights all around the fire pit like all of my trees around the fire pit had lights and so at that time, I think I had about 30,000 lights so I was obviously a little bit of an overachiever already—if I do anything I usually over-do-it. Lots of people liked them and we got lots of comments on them from neighbours driving down the road, so we thought what better to invite friends, its Christmas, and enjoy the lights.
“I have somewhere around 140,000 lights now. How it works is you come to my place, park your car in the parking lot, get out, and walk through the lights.
There is a donation box at the gate and volunteers there to tell you what everything is about. If you haven’t been there before the volunteers will go more in depth to explain what it is all about. We remind everybody that all of the donations still go to support the patients at the mental health unit, so everybody knows that is the reason behind it. People describe walking through the display is like walking through a Hallmark movie. So, you actually walk right through the middle of all of the displays and trees with lights. Anyone can stop by and walk it 6pm to 10pm every night in December.”
Fundraise and donate
Moats not only fundraises for the mental health units, but also personally purchases the supplies and materials for the units.
“I do things with the unit all year long. They directly don’t get the money because if you donate to the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) they decide where the money goes. So how we do things is I work with several of the staff in different units and they send me a message to tell me what they need, I go out and buy it, and I deliver the stuff. Instead of them getting the money and hope it goes to the mental health units, I get them the stuff that the staff want for the patients.
“One year I ran out of things to buy just doing arts and crafts to stock it all up and had money left over and I asked them directly what they needed, and they asked for basics. I supply a ton of hygiene supplies. Everything from toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner, women’s hygiene products because the hospital ones are terrible, so I have been told. Some of the staff have told me they are embarrassed to offer the pads the hospital has for the patients. So, I supply anything and everything they need—everything hygiene, almost everything arts and crafts, leisure activity, special request things. Right now, on the list is a couple of smaller televisions for tv carts that they have carts where the tvs quit working. I regularly do televisions, and electronics because if somebody has a bad day and lashes out sometimes it is toward objects and the tv will get smashed or wrecked or things like that, so I just buy them new ones.”
He says he continues to support the patients with crafts and supplies through their mental health journey to make a difference in their care and day-to-day activities. “It has been 10 years since my daughter has been there. She is doing better and has learned how to cope. Nobody wants to be there as a patient, but sometimes it is the safest place, and they have to be there. You hope that while they are there, they learn some tools to help them not have to go back there again. Some are there short term and some are there long term. I have met patients who are there five months and without stuff to do.
“I have stumbled across something that works and I make a difference. It makes a difference to the patients and staff, and I just want to continue to see it keep going. I am just going to keep doing it.”
How to donate
The fundraiser is called Friends of 1D and can be found on Facebook where posts share the Christmas lights and items purchased for the units at the Regina General Hospital.
“If you can’t make it to the acreage to see the lights and you would like to donate we do accept e-transfers at friendsof1d@sasktel.net and the Christmas Lights and Fundraiser has its own Facebook at Ian’s Christmas Lights/Friends of 1D. I post every time I take supplies and things to the hospital, I post it on our Facebook to show people what their donation is going toward and follow along. There will be pictures of the lights on there as well.”
Making a difference
Moats says he enjoys knowing that he has helped make a difference in the people’s lives.
“When my daughter was going through all of it, it was hard on our family.
Those were hard years and rough years. When the hospital asks me for something I have really strict criteria. It has to be something that directly makes a patient’s day better. That is my only criteria. In my opinion, it is all of the little things that will never be funded that are actually the things that will make the biggest difference to the patients. I know it works because I have patient’s, past patients and their families come out to the lights all of the time and tell me how much it meant to them and that is what really keeps me going when people come to me and tell me how much it meant to them about what I do.
“Just to be able to keep that going, support the patients, and make that difference is huge to me. Everybody should experience how I feel when people come to me telling me they appreciate my fundraising and support.”
How to find Ian’s Christmas Lights
½ mile straight south of McLean on 620 Grid – turn south at entrance of McLean instead of going into the town of McLean.
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