Goderich community groups and service clubs have until Wednesday afternoon to express interest in collecting donations for the Canada Day fireworks.
Council held a special meeting Monday, after the town's Tourism Department was unable to include a volunteer collection agreement in the agenda for the June 9 meeting.
Jenna Ujiye, Tourism and Community Development Manager, said they reached out to a lot of the usual Goderich groups, but none were able to take on the task.
"Unfortunately with everything going on and staff turnover, we did get a lot of information out but didn't get a lot of responses, so we weren't able to get it into the June council meeting," she said. "In regards to the actual process, we connected with community organizations we had on the website... unfortunately the majority of them either didn't have the availability or the capacity."
The annual effort helps offset the costs of the fireworks in the town's budget. In order to incentivize participation, 20 per cent of the funds raised goes back to whichever volunteer group runs the collection.
However, the Town's tourism department, which is just two employees, says the only group that showed interest this year was Camp Menesetung in Ashfield-Colbourne-Wawanosh.
Wanting to see those funds support an in-town group, council agreed to extend the deadline 48 hours. Members expressed concerns that the selection process could get muddy if there's multiple groups that reach out, but Mayor Trevor Bazinet said that was unlikely this late in the process.
Council also acknowledged they need to develop a process to prevent this happening in the future.
During the public portion of Monday's special meeting, resident Steve Buchanan, former director of the Huron Tourism Association said council needs to help its own Tourism Department moving forward.
"The Town of Goderich has an unbelievable treasure in our tourism and hospitality industry, it is so under-used, so under-tapped," he said. "We chronically underfund and understaff the tourism portion of what we're trying to do here, and so in defence of the staff, I'm going to suggest they need more resources to take advantage and use the opportunity that we have."
Groups running the collection need to show they prioritize public safety and effective oversight, and all volunteers gathering donations must be over 18.
To express interest, reach out to Tourism Goderich as soon as possible at tourism@goderich.ca.