Fireworks – Ocean Park Civic League

From our Fireworks master Jill Doczi comes the second installment of how the Independence Day Fireworks funded by individual contributions came about:

“July 2011: Our first authorized show in 2010, organized by our Ocean Park Civic League president, Rick Mercadante, was a huge hit. In his words, “We started the summer by celebrating our nation’s birth with a fantastic fireworks display that exceeded all expectations. I was proud of the way our neighborhood came together in a grassroots effort to make this happen. What a great country to live in, and even better, what a great neighborhood we live in.

Rick’s accomplishment set the ball in motion for our new, safer tradition, and it did indeed accomplish the goal of curbing the night-long illegal fireworks along our beach. However, at the end of his commitment to our country, he received his final call — to Djibouti. Before he left, Rick asked me to take on his project. If someone didn’t keep it rolling, we wouldn’t have a fireworks celebration of our country’s independence anymore on our beach.

As a child, fireworks seemed magical to me. The anticipation of the explosions followed by the surprise of colorful displays were a once-a-year treat in Roanoke if we were lucky enough to have someone drive us downtown, find parking, squeeze into bleachers with thousands of others and watch our city display over a football field. At the time Rick asked me, I had small children who had only ever known the un-hassled Independence Day tradition of walking down to the beach with family and friends to watch fireworks with reflections on the water and the sound of waves as the backdrop to our “Ooooos” and “Ahhhhhs.” I wanted them to grow up with those memories. I agreed with hesitation. Little did we know, this would be a learning year.”

Please donate! Jill Doczi tells the story of how our fireworks show came about:

In the past, neighbors celebrated the day of our nation’s independence starting at sundown and continuing into the early morning hours with their own fireworks on the beaches. From Little Creek Amphibious Base to First Landing State Park, we had a stunning array of light and sound from everything between small sparklers and thousands-of-dollars mini-shows, all illegal, but impressive as a whole for a community.

Over the years, the word spread, and people from outside the community flocked to participate. Sometimes those people showed up a little under-the-influence, excited to share their self-taught pyrotechnic skills. Sometimes they didn’t care as much about the safety of neighbors and sometimes they didn’t have the skills they thought they did — resulting errant shots into dry dune grass, onto roofs and into crowds. Hundreds of fireworks shooting in all directions up and down the beach did start to resemble a war movie.

In 2009, we experienced the Great Fireworks Crackdown. Due to some serious safety issues from the previous year, the city launched a very militant effort to stop the illegal use of fireworks on the Fourth of July along the Shore Drive beaches. In addition to increased beach patrols, they staged police and fire marshal staff at every access entrance. They checked coolers, bags and buggies for explosives and meted out severe penalties. It worked. Fireworks celebrations of Independence Day appeared to have ended on our beaches.

The community realized that maybe it had gotten out-of-hand and unsafe, but we weren’t willing to give up the tradition. How could we celebrate our country in the same patriotic way that centuries of Americans before us have, while not setting each other and our neighborhoods on fire?

In 2010, our then civic league president, Rick Mercadante, proposed we raise funds for a professional show. The city agreed. Word-of-mouth and a loan from the civic league launched our first authorized fireworks show in July 2010.

Donate: www.opcl.org

Tag: Fireworks

🎇Fireworks 🎆History Part 2💥!

The Story Behind the Ocean Park 🎆Fireworks: Part 1! 2025 Fireworks on 🇺🇸July 6th at 9:15🎇