WESTBROOK — Todd Mead has been lighting up his block – and attracting hundreds of visitors to it – for the past month with his computer-controlled, musical Christmas light show he designed to raise money for the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland.

Mead’s house and front yard at 46 Jacqueline Way features 3,000 individual, computer-controlled lights. He’s been setting up similar intricate light shows for a few years. This is the first time he’s using it to raise money for the Animal Refuge League. With over 300 animals housed at the shelter in Westbrook on an average day, the light show’s financial contributions can make a big impact, according to the league.

The lights outline the windows of Mead’s home, his porch and some big snowflakes atop his garage. In the yard, lights cover a large evergreen tree, numerous artificial trees, geometric shapes and other designs. And they are synchronized, flashing and blinking according to the music of the moment.

“All the lights are sequenced to a variety of songs, so when you come you can sit in your car and tune your radio to 87.9 so you can hear the music with the lights,” Mead said.

When tuning in, viewers will hear a number of Christmas classics along with new songs from movies like “Frozen.” The lights “perform” to each song specifically.

The show, which runs each night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. through Monday, Dec. 30, takes a lot of work. Mead starts putting lights up in November.

“It’s a year-round thing, working on this,” said Mead, who studied computer science in college. “I actually started sequencing the music to lights in February or March last year for this year. I have new products that came in that I will be adding to the show, so we are adding as we go, too. With the computer-controlled set-up, we can control each individual bulb and pixel.”

Mead says the project is a lot of fun.

“We enjoy doing this. My favorite Christmas memories as a kid (are) when my parents would take me around in the car looking at different light displays. We did that with my son when he was younger, and I hope that there are families making memories with my light show,” Mead said.

The collection box for the Animal Refuge League sits at the end of the driveway of the house. Mead is collecting both cash donations and supplies, like animal food, toys, litter and more. So far, the majority of donations are supplies.

“We have over 300 animals in our care right now, so anytime someone holds something like this, it really makes a huge impact on our organization,” said Jeana Roth, the nonprofit’s director of community engagement. “We feel lucky to be the recipient of Todd’s holiday show. He’s been a long-time supporter of us and the animals,”

Mead is also collecting donations through the light show’s Facebook page, facebook.com/meadfamilylights/.

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