Donors Push Fireworks Fund To ‘It’s A Go
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Del.icio.usThe Save Kailua Fireworks campaign has succeeded: All the permits are in, and as of press time, the group needed only “a couple thousand dollars more.” An air show begins 6 p.m. Saturday off Kailua Beach Park, followed by fireworks at 8.
“There will be a fireworks display,“said Kailua’s Brook Gramann, a member of the grassroots committee.“Our ideal is 12-14 minutes. If donations keep coming in, the fireworks may be longer.”
Gramann said about $53,000 was raised in 15 days.
On June 10, a few residents learned that the annual fireworks show had been canceled months earlier because of a lack of sponsors. Overnight a committee formed, and volunteers whipped up the website www.savekailuafireworks.com. A core group of five took three homemade signs to the Kailua Thursday Night Market and talked to anyone who would listen. With local media attention that day, donations poured in daily - from down the block to Europe.
Castle Medical Center was the first major donor to step up to the plate.
“We got one from Park Avenue in New York yesterday,” added Gramann, co-owner of Brand Strategy Group, “and after we had a June 20 press conference at Kailua Beach, while I was being interviewed, a person walked by and said, ‘This is for you,‘and put $5 - in ones - in my hand and helped me put it in my pocket.”
Gramann said she is still getting “three or four calls"daily from people who have heard about it and who want to help out. “I’m not surprised that the community rallied together to save something like the fireworks,” she said proudly.
The largest cash donation as of press time was $15,000 from K.C. Udagawa and Hideo Mita of Long Stay Service Hawaii Ltd., a division of OGI Holdings Co. of Japan. Other major donors giving $3,000 or more include MidWeek and Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the John King family, Carvill and Co., D.R. Horton/Mike Jones, Foodland and Kailua Chamber of Commerce.
Clear Channel Communications donated $20,000 in trade by offering to match donations in radio time.
A Wall Street Journal reporter called Gramann for an inquiry, and The New York Times published an article about the issue on June 19.
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