Durham Fireworks

Zips of red, blue and green fireworks exploded over the University of New Hampshire’s football stadium Friday night, as onlookers cheered and applauded.

Sandy Heald, a Rotary Club who helped organize the event, looked over the crowded arena of Fourth of July celebrants and smiled.

“Madbury, Barrington and other towns don’t have fireworks,” she said.

In a year with a slumping economy, many small New England towns didn’t have a Fourth of July fireworks celebration because they couldn’t raise the money.  Durham, New Hampshire however, had a spectacular 25-minute show with 14,000 shells.  The display, organized by the local Rotary Club was an annual event disguised as a fund-raiser, aimed to raise money to help fight Polio around the world.

Jon Belcher, President of the event, along with the Rotary Club planned to raise 30 thousand dollars this Fourth of July in order to meet their goal of eradicating Polio.

This year was a special occasion as the Rotary Club teamed up with the Bill Gates Foundation to help raise money to finance Polio vaccines in places like Pakistan and India. 

Eight years ago, Durham almost had to cancel their fireworks display because of lack of funds.  The Rotary Club however, took over and used a combination of advertising space, raffles, venders and donations to finance fireworks.  The display is just another way to benefit the community and help raise money for international aid.  As Belcher says, “We’re always being inventive to do more for service.” 

This year’s firework totaled eleven thousand dollars.  The event was held at University of New Hampshire’s football field amongst a crowd of local families and University of New Hampshire summer students.  People filled up the stadium but the most coveted spots seemed to be on the grass.

Before the display, volunteers handed out American flag stickers to donators.  Children’s tents with face painting, raffles and food carts dotted the landscape, all of which profited for charity.  Families sat on blankets watching the sky in anticipation while raffle prizes were called via loudspeaker.  Belcher seemed pleased.  “Good fireworks, good turnout” he said.