The Colonial Hills Civic Association

Our Fourth of July in Colonial Hills at Selby Park is back live and in person after a two-year hiatus! Here is the schedule of activities, with something available for all, and here’s the link where you can sign up to volunteer to help:

• 8:30 AM Sharp! – Start of the 43rd Annual 5K “Run Through the Hills.” Please pre-register here now, before you forget!
  This online pre-registration will cut off at midnight July 2, but you will still be able to register race day in person starting at 7:30 AM, using a credit or debit card to pay.
  Please try to come over to the shelter house between 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM on Sunday, July 3 to pick up your race bib the evening before the race, to lessen the intense activity during the hour before the race starts on July 4. And although the traditional awards for overall F/M best time, and for first, second, and third-place by age and gender category will again be given after the race — remember that this race is about having fun, challenging yourself, and that you can walk as much of the course as you want! We hope to see you there, it’s going to be a great day for a 5K!


• 10:00 AM – Kiddie Parade: Independence Day theme decorated bikes, trikes, wagons, kids, adults, pets, floats, scooters and anything else with wheels! The participants will circle the park, up to three times, while the judges and onlookers enjoy the “parade.”


• 10:30 AM – Inflatable Water Slide – Mickey Mouse Bounce House – Dunk Tank – Midway Games – Face Painters – Live Music – Food Trucks (Ajumama – Korean Street Food and free for everyone on a hot day Kona Ice, sponsored by The CyMack Group). Remember to bring swimwear and towels for the slip and slide, but to keep dry, don’t stand too close to the dunk tank while one of four intrepid volunteers from CHES taunt your throwing accuracy!


• 11:15 AM – Watermelon Eating Competition – One competition for youth under 18 and one for adults.


• Noon – End of activities – Don’t be late!

$5.00 wristbands for anyone over age three will be sold, to allow for unlimited access to the water slide, bounce house, dunk tank, midway games and face painters, with all funds generated going for the CHCA scholarship awards and for support of all the other CHCA activities and services throughout the year. Note that children three and under are free for all activities, and also that Kona Ice and the watermelon eating contest are free to everyone!

And remember all these wonderful events will require wonderful volunteers, to sign up via our SignUpGenius, which would be a convenient way for upcoming high school seniors to meet their CHCA service requirements for eligibility for CHCA scholarship grants in the spring.

We can’t wait to see you there for our traditional Colonial Hills 4th of July!

First, the CHCA would like to thank Jenny Kendall and Brenda Leggitt, the last two Welcome Wagon organizers, for their work on this role that epitomizes our “friendly neighborhood” slogan!

The CHCA is looking for someone to organize Welcome Wagon bags to distribute to our wonderful new neighbors. The “job” would entail collecting menus and other local literature from local businesses/government/news as well as soliciting donations of gift cards, drinks, coupons, freebies (bank pens or such), etc… Those would be bagged up in a donated local restaurant/shops bag. The CHCA would also provide some extra Couriers to include and maybe magnets if we have any extras. The current organizer is happy to take you around to introduce you to various business owners and such who donate materials, to make the transition even easier. She also has a little stock to turn over.

The next step would be regularly searching the Auditor website for home sales. Or you can contact one of the friendly realtors in the neighborhood who we are sure would be happy to make you a list regularly. Friendly neighborhood real estate agent Cynthia MacKenzie has graciously volunteered to provide that information upon request.

Lastly, you can either deliver those bags to the new residents yourself, or we have a gregarious volunteer who will be happy to do that step.

Simple, fun, and a great way to help out the neighborhood without too much time commitment.
Please contact the general CHCA email CHCA.worthington@gmail.com

Just a reminder that the Colonial Hills Neighborhood Garage Sale will be Saturday, June 11, starting at 9:00 AM – please see our website Events Calendar, our CHCA Facebook Page and/or your CHCA Events refrigerator magnet.

A map of the participating homes, along with a description of their items for sale, are given in this two-page PDF.

The CHCA thanks all neighbors who are participating – and we wish to give a special shout out to our Event Chair Rachael Dorothy and to our event sponsor Cynthia MacKenzie, both of whom, year after year, work to maximize our enjoyment of this event!

The Run Through the Hills 5k Race Registration is now open, for our 43rd Annual 5k Race, 8:30 AM on July 4, 2022, starting and finishing at Selby Park in Colonial Hills.

Please register now before you forget, to receive the reduced registration fee of $25.00 (plus sign-up fee of $2.50) from May 15 thru May 31. Starting June 1 thru the close of online registration at midnight July 2, the fee will be $30.00 (plus sign-up fee of $2.50).

Please note that you can walk instead of run as much of the course as you wish, but that there will be no virtual race this year.

In a few weeks, in conjunction with the next edition of the Courier, we will be repeating information about the race in a blogpost describing all of our 4th of July events — but we wanted to let you know as soon as the registration was open, so you could obtain the reduced price. And we wanted to remind you to start training now, and invite you to browse our Race Results Archive from the last 24 years, as inspiration for your training regimen for a great race this year!

Congratulations to our new Colonial Hills Civic Association (CHCA) President Leslie Caruso, who was elected at our April CHCA meeting. Leslie is a long-standing Colonial Hills resident, who will introduce herself in her first President’s letter in the upcoming Courier. Contact information for all CHCA Board members is given here.

Also please join the CHCA in congratulating the following 2022 Scholarship Winners!

• Andrea Nadolny ($3,000)
• Zach Campbell ($1,500)
• Wills Forman ($1,500)

Details for their exemplary records of service to the CHCA and their neighbors, embodying the ethos of Colonial Hills, will be published in the June edition of the Courier. Until then, please enjoy these photos of Leslie presenting their scholarships to them at the Thomas Worthington HS Local Scholarship Awards Ceremony, May 20, 2022.

The pics, photo credit to Dr. Neil Gupta, Director of Secondary Education and photographer for the ceremony, are in the following order (please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these photos)

01_Andrea Nadolny
02_Zach Campbell
03_Wills Forman

Our new Welcome to Colonial Hills signs, one at each entrance, were installed March 14 (please see photos below).

These signs were designed by a Colonial Hills resident (thanks, Jodi Barnhill!!) consistent with design standards set by the City of Worthington. Special thanks to Ken Paul for coordinating this project for the past four years, for organizing installation with the City and the sign vendor. History will be preserved and the new signs that reflect the beauty of Colonial Hills will continue to welcome residents to our neighborhood for many years to come.

A great big Thank You to all who generously donated to the sign fund to make this project a reality. And many thanks to the current and past CHCA leadership who continued to support the project — it was a labor of love, and our work is now complete!

(And here are the pics, photo credit Webmaster – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these photos)

_01 New Sign E Selby Entrance
_02 New Sign Indianola Entrance
_03 New Sign Park Blvd Entrance

Continue reading ‘Sign Is Updated’ »

The Parks and Recreation Department will be fully replacing the damaged section of the Indianola Park playground and its safety surfacing. After some time working with the insurance companies, Parks & Rec has now ordered the replacement equipment and has a contractor prepared to install soon after its arrival.

Parks & Rec is awaiting an estimated shipping date and would caution that they have seen some of these take some time since COVID began, but their hope is to have the equipment on hand and installed sometime in the spring. They will keep the fencing up for safety until the work can be completed.

If you have any questions, please contact the Worthington Parks and Recreation Department at 614-436-2743. Project updates will be posted on the City’s website at Worthington Park Projects.

Colonial Hills graduating seniors or Colonial Hills residents pursuing continuing education – please review the detail requirements on page 2 of the 2022 scholarship application – MS Word format here or PDF format here) (or use the links at the right).

As specified on page 1 of the application, your completed application must be received by April 4 (if you deliver it in person or e-mail it), or postmarked by April 1, if you mail it to our P.O. Box.

The Winter 2022 Colonial Hills Courier Scholarship Application article, on pages 9 and 10, specifies exactly the same requirements as are specified in the above-referenced scholarship application forms, but with a more easily visualized graphic display for the requirements. Therefore, you may optionally print out, cut out, copy, etc., this article from the Courier, to use as your application form, if you wish.

We hope to double the amount of $3,000 that we awarded last year – so apply now, before you forget!

Even a full moon did not dim the bright holiday lights in our fine community. Thank you for adding some shine and shimmer to another challenging year.

The judges were distracted by the huge buck in the front yards of the 400 block of Park Overlook, but once back on task, the following houses were deemed the winners for 2021:

• Best Overall – First Place: 287 Loveman – Wow!! Just go see it!! Music, lotsa lights, blow ups, retro theme…it has all our favorites all in one!!
• Best Overall – Second Place: 215 Selby – Merry Camping!
• Best Overall – Third Place: 435 Park – An evergreen dripping with huge bulbs.
• Best Front Door – First Place: 5603 Indianola – Earthy and Charming country style.
• Best Front Door – Second Place: 63 Southington – Lovely and classic evergreen swags surround the door and its red “Merry Christmas” sign.
• Best Front Door – Third Place: 212 Colonial – Although the address was hard to see in the dark, you can’t miss the blue and cool toned multi colored lights around the entrance.
• Best Retro: 583 Loveman – Grinch, Spongebob and Elf are now retro!
• Most Artistic: 356 Colonial – An artful display of gifts on a sled and tiny colorful lights beautifully arranged throughout the yard and fencing.
• Most Lit Up: 71 Southington – A sea of white lights. Love the angel.

Have a safe and joyous holiday season!

(And here are the pics, with photo credits to the Secret Judges – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these photos)

_01 Best Overall – 1st Place
_02 Best Overall – 2nd
_03 Best Overall – 3rd
_04 Best Front Door – 1st Place
_05 Best Front Door – 2nd
_06 Best Front Door – 3rd
_07 Best Retro
_08 Most Artistic
_09 Most Lit Up

Continue reading ‘2021 Colonial Hills Holiday Decorating Contest and Photos’ »

Please sign up, using our SignUpGenius for Kit Assembly, for Luminary Kits Assembly, Saturday, December 4, starting at 10:00 AM.

Due to ongoing COVID concerns for our luminary kits event, we will again be limiting the number of volunteers – but not as drastically as for 2020.

That is, to try to ensure the safety of all volunteers and their families at home, we will enforce masks to be worn at all times and we will limit the number of volunteers for each task, so as to maintain social distancing, especially inside the shelter house. The number of volunteers will be limited as specified below and in our SignUpGenius.

Please note that for 2021, volunteers for any task can include any youth middle-school age or older, due to the current availability of vaccines for youth of this age. And based on our experience from 2020, there will need to be only one shift of volunteers for these tasks, as follows:

1. Inside the shelter house component assembly (up to 8 volunteers)
2. Outside the shelter house component assembly (up to 7 volunteers, plus the Event Chair)
3. Bundling supervisor (1 volunteer)
4. Pea gravel shovelers (up to 8 volunteers), who are requested to bring their own standard-size, pointed-tip garden shovel. There will be teams of two people at each of the 4 shoveling station chairs. Each shoveling team can decide how long each member will shovel, while the other team member holds open the grocery bags (team members could switch roles halfway through).

Pease note that as opposed to last year, if you didn’t sign up beforehand on our SignUpGenius, but do show up to volunteer at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning, there may still be an open position for you to volunteer. However, we request that you do sign up ahead of time to reserve the volunteer position of your choice.

Dunkin’ donuts, coffee and hot chocolate will be served, and plenty of hand sanitizer will be provided inside the shelter house – and we greatly thank our two sponsors for our event:

• Colonial Hills resident Erin Glowacki, the Mark Neff Team, New Albany Realty and
• Colonial Hills resident Scott Dahs, Rapid Mortgage Company.

Regarding the Trustees picking up their bundles of kits for their Districts: We are asking the Trustees to start coming over no earlier than noon on Saturday to pick up their bundles, so as not to increase the number of people present in the shelter house area during the kit assembly timeframe, which is expected to be 10:00 AM to about 11:30 AM, especially if it is not raining too hard that day.

Light Your Luminaries! Our luminary display evening will be Sunday, December 12, starting at 7:00 PM, per the instructions which will be enclosed in each resident’s luminary kit.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, or if you encounter any difficulty using our event’s SignUpGenius. Thank you,

Will Pearce, Luminaries Event Chair
365 S. Selby Blvd
614-888-8236
willpearce@columbus.rr.com