Reporter/Photographer
Peninsula Daily News
QUILCENE - A $100,000 grant has been awarded to the communities of Quilcene and Brinnon to help stimulate the economy and invest in the youth.
The Northwest Area Foundation, based in St. Paul, Minn., announced this week that the economically struggling communities had won the organization's Great Strides Award in recognition of an innovative approach in attempting to reduce poverty in the area.
The grant money will go to the Quilcene School student-owned shellfish business Big Quil Enterprises, said Jim Hodgson, a board member of the business and teacher in Qulcene School District.
"We are so thankful for being recognized by the Northwest Area Foundation with the Great Strides Award," said Joe Baisch co-community coordinator and business manager of the enterprise.
"There are many in the community who contributed to this success. The award money will allow us to continue our work building a youth-oriented economic engine in South Jefferson County."
The business got off the ground about three years ago with a Bill and Melinda Gates grant, but those funds will expire this year, which makes the grant so important, said Hodgson.
The eventual goal is to make the business self-sustaining, which it currently is not.
"The grant will give the corporation the money for operating capital for two years," Hodgson said.
The money the students make through the business "provides funds for students in terms of the activities they want to do at the school," he said.
He suggested school-related travel, school expenses while attending Quilcene School or tuition for college as possibilities for how the business will help the students financially.
Not only that, Hodson said, but the Big Quil Enterprises is teaching the 50 students involved valuable skills in the profitable shellfish industry of which Quilcene in international known for.
With the down-turn of the timber industry in the area in past years, a new developing business, aquaculture, began to find prominence and provides more than 400 jobs that pay up to $25 an hour, said Hodgson.
Taylor Shellfish Co. has is the primary aquaculture business in what has grown to be a $73 million-per-year industry in the state.
Big Quil Enterprises works in partnership with Taylor Shelfish Co.
The student-owned business leases a beach on Quilcene Bay and harvests oysters there. It them sells them to Taylor Shellfish for processing.
Three other communities received the grant.
They were Independence, Ore., White Earth Indian Reservation, Minn., and Westhope, North Dakota.
The winners were chosen because of steps they've taken to date to reduce poverty over the long term.
Representatives from the Northwest Area Foundation visited Quilcene in December to interview those involved in the aquaculture projects.
Each of the winning communities were were evaluated against five criteria.
Those included inclusiveness, regional impact, asset-based perspective, economic engines and leadership.
Hodgon said the he hopes the grant and Big Quil Enterprises will make the students want to go to college and then "come back and be contributing members of our community."
February 5, 2007 - Joy Baisch, Big Quil Enterprises 4-H Leader Jefferson County WA, shows an Oyster cluster on the Quilcene marina beach.