Fish from across Alaska and the Lower 48 is going toward recovery from hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
Washington-based nonprofit SeaShare, which works with seafood companies to donate fish to those in need, is partnering with food bank network Feeding America on the disaster relief.
That’s according to a press release, where the nonprofit writes that 2 million servings of seafood are headed to food banks in Miami, Houston and 10 other states.
SeaShare executive director Jim Harmon said the last time the organization rallied donations like this was in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Harmon said the majority of the fish still comes from Alaska, but the recent need has caught the attention of the seafood industry nationwide.
“We’ve been able to show the other seafood companies around the country how Alaska processors and the Seattle processors have stepped up, so we’ve got some great donations from New Hampshire, from Chicago, some other people who don’t normally participate in this kind of thing,” Harmon said.
Harmon said among the donations are 30,000 pounds of salmon steak that came out of the Bering Sea and two truck-loads of Alaska-fished Pollock.
According to the press release, SeaShare is also seeking shelf‐stable donations to aid Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria. Companies can reach out to info@seashare.org if they have cans or pouches of seafood to send.
Kayla Deroches is a reporter at KMXT in Kodiak.
