If anyone has $10,000 to donate to Opoutere School near Whangamata, principal Clare Humphreys-Grey would love to hear from you.

This is how much the primary school stands to lose after it decided this week to cancel its Fireworks Extravaganza fundraiser following a complaint from a local farmer about the effect the annual event has on their animals.

Opoutere School near Whangamata has cancelled its annual Fireworks Extravaganza fundraising event after learning that nearby animals had been harmed in previous years. Photo: Opoutere School/Facebook.

Each year the extravaganza has been held the event has raised upwards of $10k for the Coromandel primary school.

But Clare explains that about five weeks ago it was brought to the school's attention that animals on neighbouring farms had been harmed when the event had taken place in the past.

She is unsure to what extent the animals had been harmed but believes that 'they were definitely distressed”.

'Once we found out that animals were being harmed we felt our only decision was to cancel the event because it's important to us that no person or animal is hurt,” explains Clare. 'Knowing that animals had been harmed in the past just simply wasn't good enough as far as we were concerned.”

While it was a hard decision to make, the local rural community is extremely important to the school, she adds.

'We takes pride in the fact that we're a rural school, so we felt it was best option to cancel the extravaganza so we can work with the community to find some sort of a resolution.”

But until a resolution is found, Opoutere now has to deal with the $10k dent in its budget and is looking for ways to recoup the shortfall.

Clare is hopeful the school can work with the local community to discover a way that it can to bring the event back in 2016.

'That may mean we have to look at options like quieter fireworks or reducing the length of time the event runs each year, or things like that.

'Over the last couple of days I've received feedback from many people in the community are devastated because it wasn't only a fundraiser for us but a really good family community event.

'We've heard some really good ideas that we could employ in the meantime as a stop gap, but as I say, we're very hopeful that the fireworks extravaganza has not gone away forever.”