Seeking Cash for Fireworks Show
The Great Bonac Fireworks Show Fireworks show, with pyrotechnics by the Grucci company and sponsored by the Clamshell Foundation, will go off over Three Mile Harbor on July 21.
The show is supported solely by donations, which are still being sought. They can be pledged through the Clamshell Foundation Web site, clamshellfoundation.org, or sent to the organization at P.O. Box 2725, East Hampton 11937.
Rossetti Perchik, the foundation’s founder, said that Grucci’s “national-class” show — just one step below the fireworks company’s top, world-class work — will begin at approximately 9:30 p.m. and last at least 20 minutes. A simulcast of classical music, to which the show is choreographed, will be broadcast on WBAZ 102.5 FM.
This will be the 32nd year of the fireworks, which originated as a fund-raiser for the now-defunct Boys Harbor camp, a summer haven for inner-city youth that was established by Anthony Drexel Duke on his property along the harbor. In the early days, the late George Plimpton was the show’s M.C., sharing his enthusiasm for fireworks as a unique art form.
When Boys Harbor dropped the midsummer event, enjoyed not only by guests at its fund-raisers but by people all around and on boats in the harbor, Mr. Perchik took up the cause, raising money to continue the show.
Money raised above and beyond the cost of the fireworks is used to support a variety of “community-based, community-supported” initiatives, Mr. Perchik said. Since its establishment in 1991, the Clamshell Foundation has made annual $1,000 book scholarship grants to graduating East Hampton High School seniors, supported the food pantries at nine different East Hampton churches, and assisted the East Hampton Town Trustees with shellfish seeding, among other projects.
This year, Mr. Perchik said, the group hopes to provide money for Three Mile Harbor water quality initiatives, such as, perhaps, offering financial incentives to homeowners to replace aging septic systems that could be polluting surface waters around the harbor.
Other projects at hand, Mr. Perchik said, include a revival of a January chili cook-off contest, and, in September 2013, “It Came Out of the Bay,” a festival celebrating local seafood.
Before that, the Clamshell Foundation will host its annual Sandcastle Contest at Amagansett’s Atlantic Avenue Beach, this year on Aug. 4.
On the night of the Great Bonac Fireworks, members of the East Hampton High School Kiwanis Key Club will fan out to collect tax-deductible donations from viewers on beaches ringing the harbor. And, said Mr. Perchik, a “mini-flotilla” of floating volunteers will visit boats in Three Mile Harbor on both July 20 and 21 to request contributions from those planning to enjoy the pyrotechnics show.
Andrra, a restaurant at the Harbor Marina off Gann Road, facing the harbor, will host a fund-raiser for the Clamshell Foundation during the fireworks, with options to include dinner and an outdoor party. Details can be obtained from the restaurant.
Although the Clamshell Foundation has been responsible for the fireworks for the last few years, Mr. Perchik said he has few photos of the show, or of people on beaches or at parties enjoying the festivities. He would welcome them for the organization’s future use. They can be sent to Mr. Perchik via e-mail at [email protected].