The Board of Selectmen this week approved a $35,000 contract with a Douglassville, Pa.-based company to provide fireworks at this year’s Fourth of July celebration in Waveny.
The Family Fourth will be held Friday, July 4 with a rain date of July 5 and a backup rain date of July 12, according to Tom Stadler, chair of the committee that long has organized the hugely popular family-friendly event.
“This is our normal contract,” Stadler told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday in Town Hall and via videoconference. “That’s the same amount as last year. It’s not gone up a dime, but the show will be just as good.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contract.
The item came during the same meeting where the Board voted to disband the Family Fourth Committee and move responsibility for organizing the picnic and fireworks show (with live music, bouncy castle, food trucks) to a subcommittee of the Parks & Recreation Commission.
New Canaan’s “Family Fourth” was launched in 1979 when the chair of Parks & Rec at the time, Joe Toppin, brought the idea to then-First Selectman Charlie Morton about creating a regular event out of a Bicentennial celebration at Waveny a few years earlier, complete with a picnic, fireworks and skydivers.
Since Toppin, only former Recreation Director Steve Benko, former First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Stadler have served as chair of the Family Fourth Committee.
Stadler also noted that the town has used the same family-owned company for 42 years.
“They’re just a delight to work with,” he said.
Karl said that nonresidents coming to the fireworks show for the first time often “can’t believe the quality of the show.”
“Every year, they put on a really nice display,” Karl said. “The venue we have, obviously, is one of the best around, too.”
Stadler noted that the following year, 2026—the 250th anniversary of the nation—the Fourth of July will fall on a Saturday.
Carlson said the town needs to make sure it secures the same company for the milestone anniversary for the United States.
Stadler said, “I’m working on that.”
Carlson replied, “We need to do that ASAP… We need to get that in writing… That one is a very big deal.”