A pretty potty? This family hits the humor mark annually with odd holiday attraction

It started as a persistent eyesore in a Lee’s Summit neighborhood. Seven years later, an empty lot featuring a decorated portable toilet continues to attract visitors while also providing food donations for a local charity.

Lee’s Summit’s Magic Potty launched in 2017 when Troy and Cyndy Jackson, along with their children, had the idea to decorate a portable toilet left behind following a road construction project near their house in the Asbury Park subdivision.

But the potty’s story really begins around 2015 when the city of Lee’s Summit and the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) joined together to extend Blackwell Road to Highway 50 in eastern Lee’s Summit. The start of construction also included delivery of a portable toilet for the road workers.

“It was moved around a bit,” said Cyndy Jackson, “and people knocked it over once or twice and kids threw fireworks into it on the Fourth of July.”

But for the most part, the portable potty kept a low profile.

When the road construction ended, Jackson said the toilet was placed on public property near Blackwell Road and Shenandoah Drive, adjacent to the family’s home. The portable potty remained on the vacant lot for several months after the road workers moved on to other projects. As the holidays approached in 2017, Troy Jackson and the couple’s daughter, Parker, were decorating their house with Christmas lights. Parker, almost 7 at the time, was the first one to suggest that they also decorate the abandoned potty. Duct tape and an extension cord did the job that year.

The unlikely display was a hit in the neighborhood but initially did not have a name. The attraction gained its own moniker when a neighborhood family on their way to visit the Lee’s Summit Magic Tree — an annual display now located at 1401 N.W. River Road — called it the Magic Potty.

The lighted portable potty was generating traffic, so Jackson said the family decided to use this attention to help others. They placed a large barrel by the decorated toilet, collecting close to 800 pounds of non-perishable food for Coldwater, a Lee’s Summit nonprofit that provides food and clothing for people in need.

“The best thing is coming home from work and seeing the barrel overflowing with food,” she said.

The holiday display and the amount of food donated have grown significantly. Over the last three years, Magic Potty visitors have donated from 2,700 to 3,400 pounds of food annually. In all, the display has garnered 9,920 pounds of non-perishable food for Coldwater, with an annual emphasis on donations of peanut butter.

“The peanut butter collected goes directly to Coldwater’s No Hungry Kids program, which provides weekly backpacks to students in the Lee’s Summit R-7 district that are food insecure,” Jackson said. “We hope to collect enough 16-ounce jars of peanut butter in the early weeks to help No Hungry Kids be able to include a jar in each backpack sent home over the holiday break.”

Soon after the Magic Potty’s first season ended, Missouri Department of Transportation workers returned to claim the portable toilet and haul it away. Jackson said their family heard from a representative of MoDOT that the agency delayed the pickup until after the holidays after learning about the display.

With the removal of the portable toilet, some might assume that the Magic Potty holiday display was gone forever.

“That next year, people began asking us, ‘Are you going to do it again?’” Jackson said.

So the display returned for a second year. Since then, the Magic Potty has not missed a holiday season. Initially the Jacksons had hoped to gradually begin lighting the trees on the attraction’s empty lot. Fortunately, a friend helped them connect with Randy Scarborough, a lighting expert.

“His company — RCE-Lighting, Energy, Technology — has been providing the light display since 2020,” Jackson said.

With Scarborough’s help, the lighted displays have expanded to include numerous trees on the lot as well as animated figures. At this year’s Dec. 1 Magic Potty lighting ceremony, Scarborough was selected to light the display based on his enthusiastic support for the unusual attraction.

“ORI — Outdoor Restrooms Inc. — has donated the potty since 2020,” she added. “We also have support from Project Happiness LSMO as they make us signs each year to display. Alyssa’s Wishes Kindness Rocks Garden also drops some of her hand painted rocks for people to find.”

Magic Potty has its own Facebook page and attracts visitors from beyond the Lee’s Summit area.

“It has become a nice little tradition that brings some humor and brings folks out,” Jackson said.