April 9, 2020 — We are pleased to announce Saving Seafood’s COVID-19 Response and Aid Information portal, available on the Saving Seafood website at coronavirus.savingseafood.org.

The two-way portal will provide curated and up-to-date information to the domestic seafood harvesting and processing community, as well as serve as a way for us to collect concerns from industry members, and get those concerns to appropriate entities at the Federal level.

As we have been doing since the declaration of a national emergency using our existing Saving Seafood member email lists, we will send out updates as we receive them from the White House, Congress, the Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury, FEMA, DHS and other agencies. And we will add, modify, or update the information on this page.

If you would like to receive these updates by email, you may add you email address via the form at the top of the portal page.

We have heard from White House, Administration, Congressional offices and others who have asked that we keep them informed about any questions or concerns from the industry. This page will collect information received from members of the fishing industry, so we can provide that data to staff at relevant agencies and offices.

We will ensure that information sent out and posted here is reviewed and edited daily so that it is applicable to all types of businesses involved in seafood harvesting and processing in all regions of the U.S.

We will also include information that is relevant on a more local level, as we certainly are aware that the seafood industry and fisheries across the country are diverse. We want to work with appropriate state and local agencies to ensure that we have their updates as well.

Our friends at Massport — the Massachusetts Port Authority — and the New Bedford Port Authority were the first to agree to be partners in the effort, but since then numerous local agencies, companies and organizations have joined the effort. If your locale is not yet listed in the state area of the page, please reach out to your local/state agency that you feel would be our best partner in this effort and [1] introduce us or re-aquatint them with us, and [2] ask them if they’d partner with us (and you) on this project, and [3] let us know who you think we should work with in your region.

If your company or organization or agency is willing to be a partner in this effort, please contact derek@stoveboat.com to let us know and send a logo.

We would like to thank Pamela Lafreniere and Ed Anthes-Washburn at the Port of New Bedford, and Gordon Carr at Massport for helping us get this off the ground.