Thursday and Friday morning collections for the Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration - Wallingford Fireworks Fund

Hey gang – I’ll have that big announcement I promised later today.

In the meantime, we are collecting this morning (Thursday April 5, 2012) at the SOUTH Colony Dunkin Donuts (my Dad is there) until about 9AM

Tomorrow, Friday April 6 he will be at the NORTH Colony Dunkin Donuts (near Shop Rite / Sears Hardware plaza) from about 7AM to about 9AM.

I will be over in Yalesville at the Dunkin Donuts on Main Street (Route 150) starting at 6:30AM. I am going to be there with my two older kids and with Stephanie Clock and her family. Stephanie is a Senior Administrator/Project Coordinator for Gale Development Services, the group responsible for funding the Campus at Greenhill $10,000.00 donation. Please stop by and say hello and make your donation to the Fund.

Donations this month will have an additional bang for their buck and I can let you know more about that later today.

Also, later in the day on Friday from 2PM to about 6PM I will be collecting at the Wallingford Stop and Shop so if you miss us in the morning at Dunkin Donuts feel free to stop by in the afternoon and see me.

As always, you can make your donations payable to the Wallingford Fireworks Fund and mail them in as well:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule)

Big news coming tommorow....

Stay tuned...

REMINDER - Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration fundraising committee meeting TONIGHT Tuesday April 3, 2012

Just a quick reminder that there will be a Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration fundraising committee meeting TONIGHT Tuesday April 3, 2012 at Gaetano’s in Wallingford.

For all the additional details please see yesterday’s blog post.

Hope to see you there!

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration fundraising committee meeting: Tuesday April 3, 2012

The Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration fundraising committee will meet on Tuesday April 3rd at 7:30PM at Gaetano’s in Wallingford.

The meeting is open to anyone that wishes to attend. You can come to observe or to find out how to informally help us out (one task, one off, etc.) or you can choose to join up and help us out regularly.

We are planning to discuss at the meeting our current collection levels for the fund as well as the announcement that is going to hit tomorrow (keep an eye on the blog) and how we are going leverage it over the next 30 days.

If you can come on Tuesday April 3rd at 7:30PM at Gaetano’s we’d love to have you join us for the brainstorming.

For those of you that cannot make the meeting but who may still want to help, we are still collecting at Dunkin Donuts in town and we need people to man the shifts.

My father and I are still out collecting each weekend; if you can stand out to collect all or part of the time on Thursday or Friday mornings at any of the Dunkin Donuts locations please let me know. We try to go for 6:30AM to 9:30AM but even if you can only take part of a shift that is better than nothing.

This upcoming weekend being a holiday weekend we are also going to be out at Stop and Shop on Friday afternoon – we received permission from them to stand from 2PM to 6PM so we can use a hand there as well.

As always, you can help out just by making a donation and / or by spreading the word to your friends and neighbors. Since 2010, the Wallingford Fireworks Celebration has been 100% funded by donations from everyday citizens of Wallingford – the only way it continues is with your backing, support and donations.

Your tax deductible donation can be sent to:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule)

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration collection totals for the week ending Saturday March 31, 2012; we now stand at $17,534.78

With the totals in from the collections this week (stymied by the rain on Saturday) we still had a decent week and now our totals for the collection drive stand at $17,534.78.

Even when you remove the $10,000.00 we received from Campus at Greenhill in mid March when they came on board as the Naming Convention sponsor, $7,534.78 is a great start.

In 2011 we already had the Dinner Fundraiser (it was held on March 18) and our totals stood at $8,110.27.

For this year we were able to have the dinner later in the season (as we did in 2010) – it is scheduled for THURSDAY MAY 24 – so tickets have yet to be sold and tallied into the totals like they were already at this point last year.

I am hoping to have a couple of additional BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS this week so stay tuned,

I am planning to post a blog update each morning around 8:30AM so be sure to check back in.

2012 is quickly turning out to be our best funding year as the donations are streaming in strongly and we are quite likely to have the largest fireworks display for a show held in Wallingford.

If you want to help out and keep the momentum going please consider donating now, send your tax deductible donation to:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule).

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration: Cost estimates for the 2012 show

I had the chance to catch up with Comptroller Bowes before the Town Council meeting this week and I was able to get a better idea of the town services costs for the show. I had estimated them a little shy so they were about $400.00 in total more expensive than I was figuring:

Police Department Overtime      $8,000.00
Fire Department Overtime          $2,000.00
Fire Marshall Overtime                $   900.00
BoE reimbursement                    $   400.00
Recreation (Port o Lets)              $1,000.00
Public Works Overtime               $    350.00

Total                                             $12,650.00

The fireworks show itself is coming in at a grand total of $15,000.00 so the full cost that the fund has to bear before any other expenses (mailings, advertising, etc.) is $27,650.00

We are still working hard at trying to get additional major sponsors but in the meantime we are out getting ever dollar we can collecting at the Wallingford Dunkin Donuts locations.

It looks as if this Saturday morning is going to be a wash out with the weather so we’re probably at the end of the container collecting for this week but you can always mail your donation to us:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule).

We still have a ways to go to make our 2012 fundraising goal of $30,000.00 so we hope you consider pitching in to help save our grand celebration for the third year in a row.

Nonprofit wants input in fireworks planning

As published in the Record Journal, Tuesday March 27, 2012

By Russell Blair
Record-Journal staff
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225

WALLINGFORD — The town councilors who started a nonprofit fund to save the town’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration want more input on discussions regarding a vendor for this year’s show.

Democrat Jason Zandri and Republican Craig Fishbein started the Wallingford Fireworks Fund in 2010, the year the town dropped funding for the celebration from its budget. The nonprofit has raised enough money to pay for the show in each of the last two years.

Zandri said that in the past he approached vendors and negotiated quotes, which he passed on to Parks and Recreation. But this year the town has been seeking quotes without Zandri’s assistance.

“There’s no precedent to say we can’t be at the table during the discussions,” he said.

Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. said that the purchasing process has to be overseen by the town.

“We have requirements to hire anyone,” he said. “The [Parks and Recreation] department takes responsibility for them.”

Dickinson said that he didn’t want anybody other than the town to have contact with vendors.

But Fishbein said other organizations have worked with the town to solicit vendors for events.

“Wallingford Center has input for Celebrate Wallingford,” he said. “We want to be part of the discussion.”

Fishbein said that he and Zandri weren’t looking to select the vendor “but we want to be in the loop.”

Zandri said there are benefits to having him or the fund negotiate with vendors. Last year he was able to achieve a $1,500 discount on the fireworks display by offering the vendor a chance to make a $1,500 tax-deductible donation.

For the April 10 council meeting, Zandri said he will request putting an item on the agenda to draft a “memorandum of understanding” between the town and the fundraising organization. In the future, other individuals may be involved in the process and not know the history, Zandri said.

“Things may change from year to year ... if we’re going to continue to do this thing I think some rules should be set,” he said. “I want something formal with the town.”

Among the things Zandri would like to discuss and formalize is the deadline to raise the funds, which typically has been the last Friday in May, a deadline he feels was “arbitrarily set” by Dickinson.

Zandri said Monday that $16,642.49 had been raised toward the July 7 show. The entire cost of the celebration, including town services, is estimated at $30,000. Last week, the fund received a $10,000 donation from the owners of the Campus at Greenhill, an office complex located on Leigus Road.

Information about the fireworks fundraising is available at http://wallingfordfireworks.blogspot.com.

File photo – Courtesy of the Record-Journal

Spectators watch as fireworks light up the sky over Sheehan High School in Wallingford on July 2, 2011.

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration: We still need additional help with collecting donations.

My Father and I were out this past week collecting donations for the Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration. My Father was at Dunkin Donuts earlier in the week and I was working with him on Saturday (he was at the Landfill and I was at the Recycling Center).

We could still use some help; there are additional locations where we can stand and collect donations and we need more people to man them.

We are over half way to our goal in month one and that has NEVER happened in the two years prior that we have done this but we don’t want to rest on that fact; a spate of bad weather could cause us to miss our goals. With a major sponsor we cannot let that happen.

We could use more help during the weekday mornings if your work schedule allows; we like to try to fill the 6:30AM to 9:30AM shift at Dunkin Donuts on Wednesday, Thursday and / or Fridays but even if you can’t do the whole shift and hour or two is better than nothing.

Please let me know if you can help.

If you have other time to spare or want to help out in some other way please let me know as well.

We also could use some help with people soliciting businesses for sponsorships for the 2012 event and for advertising in the 2012 Program Guide so if “sales” is more your speed we could use your help there too.

As always, reminding your friends and neighbors about the fact that the Wallingford 4th of July Fireworks is fully funded by donations is always helpful too – especially all the folks in Yalesville whose 4th of July picnics are punctuated by the event.

Remind them to send in their donations:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule).

We still have a ways to go to make our 2012 fundraising goal of $30,000.00 so we hope you consider pitching in to help save our grand celebration for the third year in a row.

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration collection totals for the week ending Saturday March 24, 2012; we now stand at $16,642.49

My Father and I were out this past week collecting donations for the Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration at the Wallingford Landfill and the Wallingford Recycling center (on Saturday). My Dad was able to get a couple days in earlier in the week at Dunkin Donuts

I have all the money counted from the weekend and a few checks that were mailed in all set for the deposit this morning.

With the $10,000.00 donation made by Gale Development through the Campus at Greenhill, our total for the 2012 celebration will stand at $16,642.49

If you want to send us your donation you can do so by sending it to:
Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule).

We still have a ways to go to make our 2012 fundraising goal of $30,000.00 so we hope you consider pitching in to help save our grand celebration for the third year in a row.

Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration collections for Saturday March 24, 2012

My Father and I will be out this morning collecting donations for the Campus at Greenhill 2012 Wallingford Fireworks Celebration.

Beginning at 8AM we will be at the Wallingford Landfill and the Wallingford Recycling center.

Please stop by and donate to support the event

If you want to send us your donation you can do so by sending it to:

Wallingford Fireworks Fund
c/o Jason Zandri
35 Lincoln Drive EXT
Wallingford, CT 06492

As always, if anyone has any questions of me please feel free to reach out by calling 860 614 6069 or via email at Jason@Zandri.net. (Generally speaking, I can answer email faster than a phone call because of my work schedule).