Rural Alaska blog: The Village : Donated salmon reaching more kids in Bristol Bay

Rural blog

The Village is a Daily News blog about life and politics in rural Alaska. Its main author is ADN reporter Kyle Hopkins. Come here for breaking news on village issues, plus interviews, videos and photos. But that's just part of the story. We want to feature your pictures, videos and stories, too. Think of The Village as your bulletin board. E-mail us anything you’d like to share with the rest of Alaska -- your letters to the editor, the photos of your latest hunt or video of your latest potlatch. (We love video.)

Contributor

Kyle Hopkins

I was born in Sitka, have lived in Kake, Skagway and Fairbanks and joined the ADN in 2005 after writing for the Anchorage Press and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I started blogging for the paper in 2006 with The Trail, our blog about the governor's race. Then came the Alaska Politics blog. Now I'm covering government and rural affairs and live in Anchorage with my wife, Rebecca. (Update: Our daughter Alice was born May 31. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.) E-mail me at khopkins@adn.com and find me on Twitter at twitter.com/ADNVillage.

khopkins@adn.com

Features

SECTION

2011 AFN

Follow the progress and see the scenes from this year's Alaska Federation of Natives conference in Anchorage.

Photos: 2011 AFN opens

Photos: Quyana Alaska performances

PHOTOS

2011 WEIO

The World Eskimo Indian Olympics took place at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.

PHOTOS

Summer in Barrow

Take a photo tour of the northernmost U.S. city during the summer when the sun is out almost the entire day.

READER-SUBMITTED PHOTOS

Life in Rural Alaska (PT 2)

Post your photos from the Bush and check out what others are sending in.

Post a photo from Rural Alaska

Reader photos: Life in Rural Alaska (PT 1)

Donated salmon reaching more kids in Bristol Bay

Posted by thevillage

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: July 16, 2009 - 10:45 am

Marc Lester/ADN archive photo
Peter Pan Seafoods cannery workers pack sockeye salmon that are delivered to the Dillingham plant from the Bristol Bay fishery. Peter Pan volunteers to process donated sockeye for local schools.

A program that brings donated sockeye salmon to students in Bristol Bay has ballooned in the past two years, an organizer says.

This month, Bristol Bay fisherman gave schools 14,000 pounds of sockeye, said Patty Luckhurst, food service manager and head cook for Dillingham schools. The point is to put local fish on local cafeteria trays so kids don't have to eat trout shipped from who-knows-where.

Compare the new numbers to the 8,000 pounds of sockeye donated in the first year of the program, in 2007.

And more kids are getting the fish. At first, donations just went to Dillingham students, Luckhurst said. Now kids across the Southwest Region School District -- which includes a cluster of village schools around Dillingham -- will dine on fresh fillets.

Those village schools, in turn, provide meals to local elders, Luckhurst said. “With school districts so darn broke now, and juggling money and everything, this is a major boon."

Photo courtesy of Patty Luckhurst
From left: Tom Whinihan, Superintendent of Peter Pan Seafoods, Patty Luckhurst, Food Service Manager for Dillingham City Schools, District Superintendent Darlene Triplett and district maintenance director Russell Nelson.