Laurie and Scott Isenman are hoping the eruptive end of this year’s Grand Old 4th fireworks show will in fact not be the grand finale.

But whether or not Bainbridge has seen its last star-spangled spectacle will actually be up to somebody else from now on.

The Isenmans, founders and primary staff members of Bainbridge Fireworks, the nonprofit behind the beloved holiday-capping show for the past nine years, are set to step down after this year, they recently announced, and are looking for a fresh face to take over the grassroots enterprise and ensure the show goes on.

It’s more work than most people understand, the couple said, and now, as they’re fulfilling a dream of living on their boat and hope to do more traveling, the responsibilities are becoming a bit much.

“Between Memorial Day and July 5 we’re stuck here,” Laurie Isenman said. “Now we have this boat, and we’d sort of like to do some traveling in that time of year if we had the option and right now we don’t have the option.

Preparation begins in late April, she explained, and doesn’t technically end until she files the nonprofit’s tax paperwork — early April the next year.

“The whole operations part I pretty much do solo — [the pyrotechnician] really does it,” Scott said. “The rest of it’s really planning with the fire department and doing the loading at the city dock in the morning, and the barge set up, and the fire safety perimeter, that sort of thing.”

It’s a lot of work for few hands — and there are few nonprofits with fewer hands than Bainbridge Fireworks.

With the Isenmans, this year’s Bainbridge Fireworks volunteer committee includes Karin Lehotsky, owner of Lollipops Children’s Boutique, and Bonnie McBryan, owner of Eagle Harbor Inn.

Some years have seen even fewer helping hands, some more — but Bainbridge Fireworks has always operated with a skeleton crew.

“We’re not spending money on us,” Scott Isenman laughed. “There’s no company car or anything.”

That the iconic island fireworks show is actually put on by a volunteer-run operation, made possible by donations and completely independent of the various other holiday happenings — the Rotary auction and rummage sale, the parade, the street fair, etc. — has long been a difficult distinction for the nonprofit’s founders to make clear to the public.

“That’s been our biggest struggle,” Scott said. “It’s one of those things where people then assume it’s part of one big package and it’s not.”

“We’re very sensitive to that,” agreed Laurie. “When we see posters around town and they say the Grand Old Fourth’s put on by the chamber [of commerce] and there are fireworks at 10 o’clock, it’s like well, that’s not really your show. Give us some money for it if you want to take credit for it.”

Recently, the Isenmans said, the city has been more supportive of the endeavor.

“We did for the first time last year get a little bit of support from the city,” Laurie said. “Just small things, like waiving the permit fee, [they] dealt with getting port-a-potties down at the beach, helped us dispose of all the trash the next morning — just simple things that would have come out of our budget, and they’ve agreed this year to do the same thing.”

Also, there’s been no charge to Bainbridge Fireworks for the additional police kept on duty patrolling the beach on the holiday, Scott said, another appreciative nod from the city.

Many local businesses have chipped in financially as well, and residents, too.

“I literally get checks for $20 and $50 and it all adds ups,” Laurie said. “Everybody can contribute.”

The average cost of the show is about $30,000, the Isenmans said, including the fireworks themselves and the pyrotechnician’s contract and the tug and barge services.

It adds up quickly, but support — and obvious love — for the show has come through in terms besides money as well.

Both the previous and current owners of the Madison Diner have annually provided free boxed lunches for the all-volunteer fireworks setup crew, and many people also turn up for the beach cleanup the day after the show.

“We don’t see fireworks debris, we see trash from the partiers on the beach,” Laurie said.

The origins of the first generation Bainbridge holiday fireworks show are shrouded in mystery.

“It was actually done many years ago and stopped; that’s been lost to history,” Scott said. “We don’t know who the organizers were and why it stopped, but the genesis of our generation of it started 10 years ago.”

It was then that Tod Hornick, founder and past president of Bainbridge Fireworks, began the show anew as a memorial tribute to Arnold Erik Jackson, a lifelong island resident and volunteer firefighter for nearly 50 years.

The show was put on by him and a small club of boaters, the Bainbridge Island Yacht Club, which is now disbanded.

“With that small yacht club doing it, they didn’t have the human bandwidth to do it and the budget for the fireworks display was more than their total coffers and annual budget combined, so they couldn’t bear the financial risk,” Scott said. “They wanted to give it up to somebody else and, and I forget why I did this, but at the time I said, ‘OK, we’ll form a nonprofit corporation,’ which we did … which we’re now the, I don’t know, owners of?”

The idea to take over began as a safety concern, Laurie recalled.

“Scott’s an elected fire commissioner on the island and fire safety is really important to us,” she said. “Before the fireworks show in Eagle Harbor, we saw so many home shows on the shore. This was just a way to make it safer and I think it’s worked. There are still a few [home shows], but nothing like it used to be.”

Officials apparently agree.

“The fire and police both say that calls and incidents have been down since we started doing it,” Scott said.

That’s not all that’s gotten better, either.

The first year out, things were so uncertain that the Isenmans had to put up their own money as a deposit for the show before even starting fundraising. Things are more certain now, they’ve built a relationship with the supplier and are more confident of what kind of donations they can expect, but it was most definitely a learn-by-doing affair — and still sort of is.

“The challenge is we have to determine a budget amount before we even start fundraising,” Scott said. “There’s that risk where we’re extending ourselves to assume we can raise that much. After 10 years, we’re fairly comfortable in knowing what we can do.”

As to the occasional complaints — the show is too loud, the show starts too late, it bothers my dog, etc. — the brains behind the boom are sympathetic, but realistic.

It starts late because it has to be dark. Sometimes, it starts even later because they’re working around the ferry schedule, or nearby boaters refuse to keep a safe distance and must be asked to back up. It’s loud because fireworks are loud; that’s half the point.

“The first couple years we did it there were complaints about noise and animals and that sort of thing, and our attitude is that we understand that, but one of the benefits, unlike the private fireworks shows, is you know when it’s going to happen,” Scott said. “You can do what you need to protect your animals, you know where it’s going to be.”

Now, as they prepare to step away from the tradition they’ve created, the Isenmans said they feel good about where they’ve taken things.

“We want to leave it on a high note,” Laurie said. “We don’t want it to be a limping along nonprofit that’s dying. We’re working on a manual, sort of recreating the steps we take beginning at the end of April through July 5 so somebody can take it over and it’s all there. It’s nothing complicated, it’s just there are tasks to be done.”

“We always said if the community wants it, we’ll do it,” Scott agreed. “If they don’t want it, they don’t contribute the money, we won’t do it — and if the community wants it to continue then it’s reasonable to ask the people to step up not just with money but to support running the operations.”

And if this year should be the last, if the finale should in fact end up being final, is there a Fourth without fireworks?

Sure, technically, but at what cost?

“We recognize we’re not curing cancer and doing these wonderful things other nonprofits do,” Laurie said. “But we’re providing a safe show, and we’re setting a tradition for Bainbridge Island. It’s the culminating event on the day.”

To donate, learn more about the show and boater safety info, or contact the founders of Bainbridge Fireworks, visit www.bainbridgefireworks.org.