To the Citizens of the City of King: We, the King City Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, want to address the challenge we faced this year, fundraising for the aerial fireworks. We had a lot of comments on social media, and we want to clarify some of this. We will only state the facts, not opinions. Lord knows we have opinions.
We started advertising in April on social media. We put out a post stating we needed donations to pay for the aerial fireworks this year. We posted it on the Chamber’s FB page and shared it to some King City groups from there. Some people told me they didn’t see it. We have no control over the algorithm on social media.
In May, we sent out 22 letters to local businesses asking for donations. This is where we have received most of the donations in previous years. From those letters, only two businesses donated and one organically. The rest of the donations were from individuals and one nonprofit.
In June, we made another post on social media and shared it to King City groups. This is when people saw it, but they saw it in late June and asked why we waited a week before the event to ask for donations. We didn’t wait until the last week. We, as a Chamber, began conversations about the fireworks at the end of 2024. We made the decision to have the fireworks again this year, even after having a small loss in 2024.
We had the conversation about the barrel on people’s yards/businesses. We discussed other events/options to fundraise. The problem is that we do not have the manpower to make all this happen. We are all busy people. Some of us do not have time for much else, but we are here trying to put on events for the businesses and community in our town. Being on the Board of the Chamber is a voluntary position. We do not get paid to be on the Board.
A couple of people asked for a community meeting to discuss fundraising for the 2026 fireworks show. We advertised for it for a couple of weeks and it was shared on social media quite a bit. We held the meeting at the new Chamber office on July 17. We had a total of nine people attend. Five of those people were Chamber Board Directors and four were citizens. None of the attendees were the people who had something not-so-nice to say on social media. Where were those people? If they can do a better job than we are doing, where were they? Let’s work TOGETHER to keep something great going for our town!
There is also the question of why we changed it to the 3rd from the 4th of July. From what I can recall, it changed because when we talked to the fireworks company they did not have any more shooters for the 4th. And it turned out to cost less money having it on the 3rd. It has been difficult to raise funds to cover the cost, so we kept it on the 3rd.
A little history about the fireworks and how the Chamber inherited it. A small group of citizens, years ago, got together to plan and fundraise to have the aerial fireworks. At that time, they raised more than enough funds each year to cover the cost. As the years went by, it became harder and harder to fundraise and the group shrank and didn’t have much help. They were looking for someone to partner with. This is when the Chamber came into play. We partnered with them and eventually, they transferred the event to us. This, though, was with the intent that the City would take it over. Well, that didn’t happen and here we are. The City has helped in the past with some funds but were unable to do so this year.
The outcome of the July 17 meeting was this:
We discussed many fundraising options. We had buy-in from the four attendees, which we appreciate so very much! We are working on putting a plan together to make this happen in 2026. It is my hope that we get the participation and help that is needed from the community and the City.
One of the suggestions to fundraise was that we get one of the fireworks booths back. We had a booth years ago, but it was broken into and from that moment we did not feel safe working it so late at night. We did not have enough people to man the booth and sometimes there was just one person closing up late at night. This is an example of why we need the community to help out.
If anyone would like to help, donate or have suggestions/ideas, please contact the Chamber office at 831-385-3814 or email kc**************@*************er.com. You can also reach me at 831-386-5600. Every little bit goes a long way!
Thank you.
