Another great day at The Pirates House! It was nice to see everyone after taking a week off for the Rotary Night Out at the Savannah Bananas game. President Karl Bohnstedt reminded everyone of the Back to School Breakfast at Haven Elementary which is scheduled for Friday, August 2nd from 8:00am - 9:00am. In addition to providing breakfast for the teachers, RCSE will be donating school supplies and 31 books to their library. Once all business items were discussed, Ben Brewer introduced Hillari Brown who is the Executive Director of Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) of Georgia.
Hillari began by giving a brief history of the organization. CCA was founded in 1978 in Houston and currently has 206 local chapters. CCA of Georgia was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Savannah with 6 local chapters. Their goal is to conserve resources for future generations by helping to enhance natural habitats. One program that is here in Savannah is collecting oyster shells and donating them to DNR for reefs. CCA of Georgia was also instrumental in having the Red Drum fish declared the only gamefish of Georgia. Currently, CCA is helping make an artificial reef from a donated pilot boat. The boat will be put in the water sometime in August. It will be located 22 miles off shore in about 50-60 feet of water. It only takes a few months for a reef to form once the boat is settled. The purpose of the reef it to attract sport fish. CCA was donating $10,000 to the project and because of the $1,000 donation from RCSE, they are now able to donate $11,000. Our donation has helped the project be completed in a timely manner.