Like many Americans I sat outside on my deck last night and watched a ton of fireworks  – for HOURS.  They began just before dusk and continued until after midnight.  And last night wasn’t the only night.  July 3rd was just as “boomy” as July 4th.  While we have a very nice city-wide fireworks display every year, fireworks stands throughout the city sell to the public for two solid days.  I was reading that the average stand can sell around $60,000 worth of fireworks.  So that begs the question, how much as a nation do we spend on things we’re going to blow up on our neighborhood streets?

Last year, $1.06 BILLION was spent on fireworks.  That’s BILLION with a “B”.  Of that, $340 million was spent for commercial fireworks displays which leaves a staggering $755 million spent by our neighbors.  $755,000,000 spent to blow things up, keep our neighbors awake, scare our pets and traumatize some of our veterans.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE fireworks – they’re beautiful and help us to celebrate a wonderful holiday.  But what if we just attended our city-wide celebrations instead and didn’t blow up $755 million of our own money.  What else could we use that money for?

Aside from just popping that money into the bank or paying off bills, if you’re going to spend that money anyway, why not spend it on something worthwhile.  Since I’m in music education, let me run a few options by you:

• Did you know the average teacher spends $500 of his/her own money on supplies for their classroom?  So, with @3.5 million public and private school teachers in the U.S., imagine if we used our sparkler money for them?  That would end up being $215 per teacher.  Every little bit helps!
• My local backpack program for children with our city foodbank takes care of 3500 children who deal with “food insecurity”, meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.   While that sounds great, the reality is there are over 20,000 children who need this help, just in my community.  There are 13 million nationwide. It takes $250 to take care of one child per year.  What we spend on fireworks could take care of 3 million of those kids for a year.
• How about taking that money and creating a yearly scholarship for needy, well deserving students?  Shoot, get together with your neighbors and create an endowment!
• Does your local school district have a foundation to raise money?  There are many worthwhile causes to contribute to.  Pick something that strikes a chord with you and give! (Got it?  Chord, music….?)  I know a lot of music educators who would really appreciate it for their students!
• Find a worthy music foundation that provides instruments and supplies to needy music education programs across the country.  The Give-A-Note Foundation is one of my favorites.

I’m sure there are a lot more ideas out there of things we all could do to benefit others in our community and not just blow up our money each year.  Now, let’s talk about that $1 billion we spend as a nation for the 4th of July on beer…. : )