As a vital commercial fishing harbor, bellingham, WA lands and processes much seafood

The Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service awarded a $406,704.30 Project Grant to Bellingham Seafeast under the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program. Bellingham Seafeast will use the funding to support the continued development and expansion of the Bellingham Dockside Market program, a direct-to-consumer seafood sales opportunity launched in October 2020 by Bellingham Seafeast, a non-profit organization based in Bellingham, Washington. Specifically, the grant will aid efforts to provide local fishing families, including tribal fishermen, with tools, training, and scholarships to more easily participate in the market. It will also support expanding the market's offerings to include SNAP-accepted payment programs and providing year-round consumer education initiatives to complement the annual Bellingham Seafeast Festival. The overall goal is to establish a consistent and viable local seafood market that benefits both vendors and the community.

However, the large majority of the seafood harvested here is processed and distributed to domestic and international markets. Our local public has long been frustrated with the lack of opportunity to connect with our local fishing families to purchase quality local seafood. This fact coupled with the difficulties brought on by covid (international markets in turmoil and restaurant closures) initiated community organizers to launch a start-up direct-to-consumer seafood sales opportunity october of 2020. Bellingham dockside market, a program of bellingham seafeast, in its initial start-up phase, has clearly demonstrated that our local/regional community enjoys and appreciates the opportunity to buy directly from our local fishermen, to learn where and how their seafood is harvested, and practice simple seafood menus. With the demonstrated success of the first eight months of bellingham dockside market, we now need to develop a solid foundation to allow the market to survive and thrive. Developing and implementing clear strategies for growth, offering more fishing families (including our tribal fishermen) easy and efficient procedures (tool kits, training, and scholarships to support the start-up costs of permits and insurance) to participate, expansion to include low-income support programs (snap), expanded marketing outreach, and providing year-round consumer education/promotions effort to complement the annual bellingham seafeast festival are a few of the planned strategies to ensure a consistent and viable seafood market program benefitting both the vendors and our community.