The Celebration 2000/1 Committee is a sub-committee of the Festival Commission and an ad hoc committee is charged with planning two main events. One is the Millennium Celebration, a community wide, intergenerational, non-alcoholic New Year’s Eve party staged for the second time at Hangar 2. This is a heated hangar owned by Ron Palmer’s Business Air. All the planes were removed for the party and our committee set up chairs and tables, a refreshment table, and decorated with helium balloons and bright table coverings. Marsh Greenhouses, Inc. donated over 200 poinsettias for the tables. Party goers were given the poinsettias and balloons to take home. In 2000, we had a lot of children’s play equipment loaned by the Recreation Department, which provided a good time for the young people in attendance. We ordered enough food for 100, which included subs. Some of the leftover food was donated to the Salvation Army in Wyandotte.
Both years we hired a DJ for $500. In 1999, we estimated the attendees at 300. In the year 2000, the numbers had fallen significantly to a little more than 50. Entrance to the party was by buying a button for $5 at various venues around the island. We ordered 500 last year, which had a flashing lighthouse. All were sold. This year we ordered 500 blue buttons with the lighthouse logo. In 1999, profits from the party totaled approximately $700. This past year we operated at a deficit.
The Celebration 2000/1 Committee is grateful to Business Air for the use of the hangar, the Recreation Department for their financial help as well as providing play equipment, Kroger’s for giving us a $30 voucher for pop and chips, Marsh Greenhouses for donating the poinsettias, and St. James Church for loaning us a large size TV to watch the ball drop at Times Square in New York.
The Celebration 2000/1 Committee recommended to the Festival Commission that the party not be continued unless there is more community-wide and township support. The indicators that people were coming were not evident in 2000. Some of the reasons given for the low attendance were that Hangar 1 was so cold at the dedication in November that people figured Hangar 2 would be as cold. Also, the Y2K scare in 1999 kept partygoers on the Island.
The second main event being planned by the Celebration 2000/1 Committee is a waterfront pageant at 2 p.m. on July 22, 2001 on the grounds of Sacred Heart’s St. Anne’s Chapel. It will honor the landing of Cadillac on Grosse Ile on July 23, 1701, 300 years ago. The committee has partnered with the Detroit 300 Festival Committee so we can use their official logo and have our event listed in their Festival supplement in the Detroit News and Free Press. Plans are underway to re-enact Cadillac’s landing accompanied by a canoe full of voyageurs and French military men. He will be welcomed and then join the Mme. Cadillac Theatre to do authentic dancing of the period. Also, on the program is a troupe of Indian dancers doing authentic Indian dancing, the Children’s Chorus singing French folk songs, and there will be vignettes of Grosse Ile history. The Islanders, the second oldest Community Theatre in Michigan and celebrating their 75th year, will do an excerpt from their first play in 1926. We are hoping to have a display from the Burton Historical Collection, the original deed that signed Grosse Ile over to the Macomb brothers on July 6, 1776. It will be the 225th anniversary of this historic event. Following the pageant a parade of historic and tall ships are expected to sail by and those attending the pageant are invited to bring a picnic lunch and sample hot gingerbread and cold applesauce, an over 100-year tradition with the Sacred Heart parish.
2000-2001 Annual Report
Printed from Grosse Ile Online
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