MARS — There will be no rocket’s red glare over the borough this Independence Day as the usual daylong family celebration will not be held for the first time in nearly a decade.

The celebration normally included a children’s bicycle parade followed by a parade with fire companies, the Mars Fightin’ Planets Marching Band and other floats.

Mayor Dick Settlemire said Tuesday that when he took office nine years ago, several residents asked him to bring back the former family 4th of July celebration, which hadn’t been held in several years.

Settlemire said he immediately began raising funds for the event through a dinner/dance and by soliciting donations from businesses and families.

“I wouldn’t feel right spending taxpayer dollars on fireworks,” Settlemire said.

The event returned to the borough the following year.

The borough eight years ago began splitting the $10,000 fireworks cost with Adams Township, but last year Adams began offering its own fireworks and stopped sharing Mars’ cost.

Settlemire said council last year eliminated the dinner/dance fundraiser, and took over organizing the Independence Day Celebration.

“And now it’s over,” Settlemire said. “It breaks my heart. Our kids deserve it. It’s the Fourth of July for Pete’s sake.”

Councilmember Patti Marburger said Tuesday that she collected $10,000 in donations last year to fund the fireworks, but said water line and catch basin projects on Garfield and Lincoln avenues have kept her too busy to organize and fund the celebration this year.

Marburger said she is grateful to those who donated last year, and she hopes to reinstate the Independence Day Celebration in 2012.

Marburger said another problem this year was the lack of volunteers. She said the borough received a letter from the James Austin Co., a longtime donor, asking why the celebration would not go on as usual. Marburger said she replied that she did not have enough help.

“It takes a lot of work,” Marburger said.

Now, she said, July 4th will just be another day in the borough.

“I know everyone will miss it,” she said.

Adams Area Fire District Capt. Rich Mann said the borough normally contacts the fire company about the celebration, then other fire companies were invited to attend.

Mann stressed that the fire company volunteered manpower and invited other fire companies to the parade, but that the parade was organized by the borough.

He said the fire company a few years ago asked council if it could take over the celebration, but the request was rejected.

Marburger said donations for the 2012 Mars Independence Day Celebration are being accepted. They can be sent to the borough building and must be marked “2012 Fourth of July Celebration.”