By Dennis Box-The Courier-Herald

A small but passionate group gathered Saturday at a conference room in the Sumner Holiday Inn Express to discuss the future of the Daffodil Festival.

Sumner City Administrator John Doan led the group through about four hours of brainstorming and soul searching over the meaning, relevance and survival of the festival.

Robyn DeLorm, who is in charge of funding and community relations for the festival, said the money to operate the festival and send the daffodil queen and princesses to community events has been declining.

“Each year (the funds) are going down,” DeLorm said. “We are trying to get more of the communities to buy into (the festival) and invest.”

The operating budget for the festival is about $260,000. The nonprofit group lost a major sponsor, Emerald Queen Casino, and now the members of the festival committee must find a way to raise money in a tight economy.

The festival receives money from Pierce County, cities like Sumner and Bonney Lake and from businesses and individual sponsors.

The festival includes the Grand Floral Street parade, scheduled for April 4, the Junior Parade, March 28, and the Marine Parade, April 19.

Despite the challenges, the group took a hard look at what the festival and royalty means to the youth, community and businesses of today.

Brad Stevens, president of the board, said, “It’s great to have a tradition, a parade, but we need an event. There needs to be something for everyone.”

The group understood some businesses find the parade a problem because families tend not to shop with children in tow.

Doan pointed out the parade day “brings lots of families to town. How do you capitalize on that? Maybe the stores don’t try to get the person that day, but a mother will come back next week.”

Brian Kaplan of Uptown Coffee News and Wisdom Bridge Productions believes business owners need to be “educated in creative marketing. We have to take time as a group to educate businesses that this is a positive thing.”

DeLorm questioned whether the festival “needs to evolve. We feel we are not being supported, but maybe we are not doing something right. We may need to retool.”

The identity of the festival and what it means today was a major theme of the meeting.

Daffodil fields have been disappearing in the valley, with only two left in the Sumner area.

“The driving force was to support that industry,” DeLorm said. “Now it’s nearly gone.”

Shelly Schlumpf, executive director of the Sumner Downtown Association, said it’s difficult now to get enough daffodils to cover a float.

DeLorm noted the strengths of the festival are its 75 years of history in the region and its contribution to the young people of the area.

Stevens said the nearly 27-mile parade that begins in Tacoma and moves through Puyallup and Sumner before ending in Orting is the longest traveling parade in the United States.

Kaplan pointed out the event “breaks down a lot of barriers and brings the communities together. Political leaders may be there, but political issues go away and we are there for community.”

Schlumpf said the festival is a “community organization and people need to open their ears and listen to the community.”

By the end of the meeting the group saw avenues for defining the festival and finding a new funding base.

“We need foot soldiers,” Kaplan said. “And I know where I can find them.”

The first parade was in 1934. According to the Daffodil Festival Web site, daffodils came to the Puyallup Valley in 1925 to replace the hop industry. The festival is traced to a garden party given by Mr. And Mrs. Charles W. Orton of Sumner beginning in April 1926.

A second Daffodill Festival workshop is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Puyallup City Hall, Council Chambers, 333 South Meridian, Puyallup.

Reach Dennis Box at dbox@courierherald.com or 360-802-8209.