Large chunk of Red Cross grant money goes to fireworks show in Manitou

Questions swirl in Manitou Springs Tuesday night.

The Manitou Chamber of Commerce used $10,000 in grant money from The American Red Cross to put on a fireworks display Friday night as a kickoff to a weekend of festivities that included the famed Emma Crawford Coffin Races.

The Red Cross donated $50,000 the Southern Colorado city to help boost tourism and economic development after back-to-back summers that included the Waldo Canyon Fire and historic floods.

Now, the city plans to replace the money by going into its own budget.

“What we will do is take our traditional advertising such as our TV commercials for the holidays and attribute those to the red cross grant,” executive director of economic development, Leslie Lewis, said. “We’ll just make sure that just comes out of the manitou chamber general fund.”

Gino Greco, a spokesman for the American Red Cross Colorado and Wyoming region, said had the organization known about the city’s intentions to use a portion of the money for fireworks it would have strongly advised against that plan.