Time to get creative.
Members of the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage — a nonprofit group focused on maintaining Cortez’ commercial fishing culture — met Jan. 18 to brainstorm fundraising ideas in the wake of the Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival’s cancellation.
Ideas included a boat raffle, T-shirt sales and ad campaigns.
The festival usually takes place in February but was called off due to the coronavirus pandemic. The proceeds from the annual event are FISH’s primary source of income.
The group has enough funding to cover its overhead this year, as well as put on the 2022 festival, said FISH board member Jane von Hahmann.
However, the group could find itself in a difficult situation if the money is exhausted.
“We have the funds to do the festival again, but we don’t even know what our festival will look like the next time it happens,” von Hahmann said. “There is an arduous COVID festival process — masks, social distancing, transportation. And all of our volunteers are older. So what happens to our workforce? We want to protect them.”
Inclement weather also poses a threat to festival profitability and has led to lean budgetary cycles.
With such uncertainty, FISH is motivated to pull in whatever revenue it can in 2021.
Von Hahmann said the group plans to increase community outreach and develop online donations.
In years past, festival revenue facilitated the purchase of land for creation of a 100-acre preserve east of the fishing village. A piece of the budgetary equation is paying off the mortgage on the “doughnut hole,” land in the center of the preserve that FISH acquired separately in 2016.
FISH also must pay down the mortgage on Fishermen’s Hall — a former church the group uses for meetings, office space and rental space for weddings and other events at 4515 124th St. W.
Another major expense is the insurance on the hall and the preserve.
FISH relies on donations, volunteers and fiscal responsibility to operate.
“We don’t have a single paid person, no paid staff,” von Hahmann said. “It’s the only thing that’s allowed us to stay alive.”
FISH began saving its pennies in 2010 and money for 2021 expenses and the next festival will come from a reserve fund.
FISH’s focus is to protect the preserve, a site that has bordered an important fishery for hundreds of years. The site was threatened by development until the group intervened.
FISH recording secretary Karen Bell estimated about 40% of residents south of Cortez Road in the village rely on commercial fishing. For them, development would have been devastating, as preservation means more fish in Sarasota Bay.
“The preserve is one of the few remaining mangrove forests left in Sarasota Bay,” said Bell, who owns AP Bell Fish Co., Star Fish Co. Market and Restaurant and a share of Tide Tables Restaurant. “There are 70 acres of mangrove that protect juvenile fish. So it’s really important to the bay and to the Gulf as a whole.”
Since making the final payment on the preserve in 2005, FISH’s main priority has been restoring the land to its natural state.
Securing funds for the project has been a long and tedious battle, said von Hahmann.
“It’s very expensive to do restoration on 100 acres of land — things like land contouring, cutting new channels, removing mosquito ditches and construction waste,” von Hahmann said. “We’re environmental, we’re taking care of land. And that’s harder to get funded.”
To achieve restoration goals, FISH has partnered with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, Southwest Florida Water Management District and Manatee County government.
Though there is uncertainty about revenue sources, von Hahmann is confident FISH will find a way.
“As a village that has been around for 135 years, we Cortezians definitely know how to persevere,” she said.
People interested in donating can send checks to FISH, P.O. Box 606, Cortez FL 34215.
The preserve can be accessed from two locations.
There is a pedestrian path from the Cortez Cultural Center, 11655 Cortez Road. Or visitors can park in the lot adjacent to Cortez Kitchen and cross a foot bridge on foot at the south end of 119th Street West.
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