VALLEY GRANDE — Less than two weeks before it was scheduled to take place on May 3, Valley Grande’s annual Founders Day celebration has been canceled.

“We just weren’t getting enough interest this year,” Valley Grande Mayor Wayne Labbe said. “I know money is tight, so maybe that played a role in it, but we’ve also seen a drop in interest over the last couple years.”

Speaking Tuesday, Labbe said he and other organizers of the event had had little luck finding artists and food vendors to commit to taking part in the event.

While the Founders Day celebration has been canceled, Labbe said a few parts of the day’s calendar remain unchanged.

“Our youth baseball leagues will be wrapping up with games at the Valley Grande Sports Complex that morning and we’ll still have the radio controlled airplane display next door at the park once those games conclude,” Labbe said.

Labbe said he would join the council members in cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for the baseball teams and their parents.

“Since we couldn’t get the food vendors, we were looking for we didn’t want to leave those players high and dry, so we’ll be running the grill,” Labbe said. “It will be a good opportunity for the players and parents to see their council out there working for them.”

During Monday’s city council meeting, council member Ronald Sawyer said there had not been as much interest from food and craft vendors for this year’s event. He said the lack of interest had been a big reason he had scheduled the radio controlled airplane display.

“It’s like anything else, you have it so many times it just gets to where interest declines,” Sawyer said. “So that’s why we are having the radio controlled planes to add something new to it. Last year we had a car show that weren’t pretty well, but we had bad weather that same weekend.”

As of Monday’s city council meeting, Sawyer had said he had only two vendors lined up to showcase their arts and crafts.

City clerk Janet Frasier said she has seen very few vendors stopping by the Valley Grande City Hall to pick up the permit needed to take part in the Founders Day event.

“We usually give them licenses to participate that day, and I’ve not issued any yet,” Frasier said during Monday’s meeting.