During this years Wooden Boat Festival, a remarkable and very successful campaign took place to educate the public on the evils of plastic and to reduce the use of plastic water bottles at the festival.
It all started when long- time Water Watcher, Burt Howells, was taking a tour of the Wooden Boat Festival storage facility in order to locate some gear which was needed for traffic and parking. He came across 2 boxes containing 64 stainless steel water bottles with the Wooden Boat Festival logo etched on them. Kaci Chronkite, Director of WBF explained that they had tried to sell them at earlier festivals for $5 each with very little success. Burt had been active in the past at reducing plastic water bottle usage and had the idea that by pulling together some resources, they might be able to sell these beautiful water bottles and raise awareness about the pitfalls of plastic. Kaci said she would provide some space for the project at the festival if Burt wanted to take this on. Of course he did! There were 7 days before the festival began.
This is were the miracle began. Burt contacted every resource he could think of for help and everyone came through like champs! PTMSC offered their big 5 gallon water jug. WSU Extension Water/Beach Watcher program offered educational displays on the evils of plastics in the environment. Jefferson County Democrats offered their canopy. The Port Townsend Farmer's Market offered tent weights to hold down the canopy in case of gusty winds, and most of all, Andi Niesen and MaryJo Nichols said they would staff the booth during the festival.
The booth came together like magic: canopy delivered, gusty wind weights at the ready, table provided by the WBF Committee, Andi appeared with the educational materials and it was "OPEN for BUSINESS". It was decided that the old price of $5 was so low, it gave people the idea the bottles were of inferior quality, so it was decided to charge $10. The water bottles were 1st class product - stainless steel. Within 5 hours on day 1, Andi sold every bottle he had except one which was saved as sample product. We had to close early.
Because MaryJo Nichols knew where to find more WBF water bottles, the booth was able to open on day 2. She sold 33 more bottles within 3 hours. Altogether 97 water bottles were sold and $970.00 was given to the Wooden Boat Festival. AND. . . we were a source of education to help people become aware of the need to reduce our consumption of plastics, and to keep what we do use out of the ocean!
All this in 7 days. Next time we can do more! It will be the 2nd Annual Wooden Boat Festival 'Reduce Your Use' campaign.
A huge THANK YOU to Andi Niesen, MaryJo Nichols, Kaci Chronkite, Jefferson Co. Democrats, PT Farmers Market, PTMSC, WSU Jefferson Co. Beach Watchers and last but NOT least, Burt Howells.