Manitou Springs redirects Red Cross money away from fireworks show

The Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce has decided to use other money to fund a fireworks show it put on Friday night after push-back for using Red Cross money for the pyrotechnics.

The Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce used $10,000 from a grant from the American Red Cross for a fireworks show Friday.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.

The chamber of commerce’s executive director, Leslie Lewis, said the goal of the fireworks show was to turn the Emma Crawford festival into a two-day event. She said a two-day event would significantly benefit local lodging spots during the festival weekend.

The festival centers around coffin races through Manitou Avenue on a Saturday in October each year.

“It gave people a lot of reasons to spend both Friday and Saturday night and go back to where ever they were from on Sunday,” said Lewis.

The Cliff House at Pikes Peak was almost completely sold out both nights. However, it’s general manager, Paul York, said that isn’t necessarily linked to the fireworks show.

“You know, I don’t know if everyone knew about the fireworks,” said York.

Still, York said it is a good idea.

“We would like to see it turn into a two-day weekend. That would be fantastic,” said York.

Lewis said she approached the Manitou Springs Fire Department when she was considering adding the fireworks show to the festival weekend. It estimated it would cost $10,000 and helped purchase the fireworks and light them off.

She said the fireworks show was worth the expensive.

The Chamber of Commerce will now use the grant from the Red Cross in more traditional ways to boost tourism, like advertisements.

“Obviously a little bit of confusion, but I think going forward it has been a learning lesson for all of us and I think it will just strengthen that relationship,” said Lewis.

Gino Greco with the Red Cross said he won’t speculate on whether this will impact it’s decision to give Manitou Springs grants in the future.

“I think we have a good partnership with them so I don’t want to say this would impact that. I think we can all do a better job and learn from this experience and we can put better perimeters on this so we don’t get into this situation again,” said Greco.

Lewis has not received an invoice for the fireworks but expects to receive it soon.