Photo from the Seadrift Legacy Project web site.

This year Seadrift will celebrate its colorful one hundred year history with the 2012 Seadrift Centennial. Our community’s history is also the history of the local commercial fishermen. As a way to honor those men and women and keep their stories alive for Seadrifters and Texans in general, the Seadrift Legacy Project was proposed by an all-volunteer group of local citizens.

The Seadrift Legacy Project is a video oral history and on-line media educational website that shares the stories of Seadrift fishermen/women – in their own words. This year, in the project’s first phase and with a budget of $8,000, fifteen Seadrift fishermen were filmed and interviewed. In addition, Rebecca Byrd Bretz, featured portrait artist in Austin, Texas, volunteered to paint, at no cost, portraits of these fifteen fishermen. The paintings will hang in Seadrift City Hall during its 2012 Centennial year. Eventually, all of the Seadrift fishermen will be filmed in subsequent phases of the Legacy Project.

We are very pleased to announce that on October 15, 2011, an all-volunteer group of local citizens, friends of Seadrift, and artists and musicians from across Texas hosted the “First Annual Seadrift Fishermen Celebration” at the Pavilion on San Antonio Bay and raised over $5,000 for this project. We are only $3,000 short from making the Legacy Project a reality. We are reaching out to you, as a friend of Seadrift, for help. Any donation, large or small, will be greatly appreciated and all proceeds go directly to this wonderful project. Please give to this worthy cause by going to our website at www.seadriftfishermencelebration.org and making a donation on Pay Pal, or by writing a check to the “Fishermen Fund” and mailing it to: Seadrift Legacy Project w/o Donna Sue Williams, PO Box 211, Seadrift, Texas 77983.

We believe you will be as enthusiastic as we are about this project to honor our commercial fishermen. Information on the Legacy Project, photos from the October 15, 2011 event, and a wonderful section on Seadrift area boats and fishermen can be viewed at our website: www.seadriftfishermencelebration.org .

Thank you so much for your support of the Seadrift fishermen during our Centennial celebration.
Sincerely,
Donna Sue Williams, Janie Waghorne, Diane Wilson, Laurie Weaver, Sabrina Weaver
The Seadrift Legacy Project Committee