Press release from the Downtown Improvement District:
Downtown appeals to public, businesses on behalf of Three Rivers Festival Fireworks
Joining the Fort Wayne TinCaps who have pledged a similar amount, the Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District has pledged $5,000 as a “challenge” to the Fort Wayne community to make the Three Rivers Festival’s signature Fireworks happen on Sunday, July 19, the last evening of the Festival.
The Fort Wayne Newspapers Three Rivers Festival is Indiana’s second-largest festival and its Fireworks display is the largest produced in Northeast Indiana. Currently, Festival organizers are about $2,000 short of the amount needed to produce the Fireworks event.
As reported in the Journal Gazette on May 25, festivals throughout the region have been forced by economic circumstances to either scale back their events or to cancel them altogether.
“We believe that the community deserves to celebrate its heritage and traditions whether in good times or bad,” said Rich Davis, President of the Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District. The District has made a direct e-mail appeal to its friends and supporters, including downtown business owners, to make direct contributions through its website to the popular Fireworks event.
“The Three Rivers Festival fireworks are a long-standing tradition in our great community. Families come from all over the region every year and go to their favorite place to sit and watch the fireworks. As a newcomer to Fort Wayne, I had a chance to experience the fireworks last year for the first time and was overwhelmed by the numbers who came out for the spectacle. And downtown Fort Wayne offers an unparalleled setting that brings the entire community together with friends and family to enjoy a great show.”
For the first time in its history, said Davis, Fort Wayne now enjoys a downtown baseball park, the much-acclaimed Parkview Field, that will afford a first-rate, unobstructed, comfortable view of the Fireworks to be launched from the top of the One Summit Square building.
People can go to the Downtown Improvement District’s Fireworks story on-line, and follow the PayPal icon to make their contribution to the Fireworks.
“For downtown it just makes sense to do everything we can to promote the Three Rivers Festival Fireworks, and to ask all our community friends and partners to do the same” said Davis. “We feel that if the community gets behind the Festival in support, this will be the biggest and best pyrotechnics display ever. And, we want people to feel the satisfaction of personal involvement. Just a modest contribution on the part of many people will enable the Festival to make the Fireworks happen. In such a dramatic setting, with an event of this scale, it’s important for us all to get together to help the Festival go out with a bang!”
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Why not suggest to the DID that they ask the successful bidding contractors on the unneeded new downtown hotel to kick in – the general from Indianapolis, the electrical from South Bend, the concrete from Michigan, the Roofing from Muncie and et al or even get the Redevelopment Department to justify using some Jefferson Pointe TIF dollars since so much of downtown is now part of that Economic Development Area? I’m sure any of this can be worked out – after all, nothing happens in downtown Fort Wayne that does not use our tax revenues – one way or another!
And our Allen County contractors can’t afford it – they just have to lay off their Fort Wayne employees – so they can’t afford it either.
How about our overpaid mayor -after all he is going to save funds since his condo isn’t ever going to be built.