For the first time in 24 years, a large display of fireworks will light up the sky over Monmouth.

A group of businesses, organizations and private donors have chipped in the money needed to hold a series of festivities at the town beach on the evening of July 2, culminating with the 9:30 p.m. lighting of fireworks from a float on Cochnewagon Lake.

“It’ll be huge,” said Monmouth Fire Chief Dan Roy, who has been organizing the pre-Independence Day celebration.

Another fireworks show will be held on July 4 just down the road in Winthrop, but Roy said the Monmouth display will cost a couple of hundred dollars more than Winthrop’s.

The July 2 festivities will begin at 5 p.m. and feature food vendors, games for children and a dance with a disc jockey. There also will be tours of the Monmouth Museum and the town cemetery earlier in the day, but those activities are unrelated to the downtown party, Roy said.

The goal of the party is to draw people downtown, which has been undergoing several renovations in the last year, Roy said. The parking lot at the town beach and boat launch has been paved, and a bathroom has been added to the park area, with funding approved by voters in fall of 2015.

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A second phase of the revitalization project would see the addition of more toilets and a covered pavilion, according to Timothy McDonald, a selectman who is chairman of the town’s economic development committee. But voters have yet to approve that second phase, he added.

Monmouth is promoting its fireworks show along with Winthrop’s and would like it become an annual event. The town last held a fireworks show 24 years ago, to celebrate its bicentennial. It also plans to hold fireworks and other festivities next year, on the town’s 225th anniversary, Roy said.

The town has an ordinance that allows fireworks use around certain holidays, including Independence Day, Roy said. It also has an exemption for fireworks shows that are run by a licensed pyrotechnics business. Monmouth’s show will be carried out by Central Maine Pyrotechnics.

Roy, who first proposed the idea of holding a downtown celebration to the economic development committee, emphasized that taxpayers have not had to cover any of the costs of the July 2 festivities. Rather, a number of businesses, organizations and people have donated the necessary money.

Charles Eichacker — 621-5642

ceichacker@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @ceichacker


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