The Most Generous Tackle Store Owners in the World

[PlatinumHooks]

Neighbors Worth Knowing: Couple keeps youths interested in fishing the Great Lakes

Jeff and Grace Brown donate more than $18,000 a year

By Belia Ortega - Sheboygan Press staff


Sheboygan, MI - On a recent snowy winter afternoon, Grace Brown sat at a table in The Wharf putting hooks on 2,100 airbrushed baits, while her husband, Jeff, was out of town on a business trip.


Although she has a business to run, Brown, 54, and her husband want kids to learn about fishing and the Great Lakes.


This is why the owners of The Wharf, 733 Riverfront Drive, donate more than $18,000 a year from their annual fishing events to Camp Y-Koda, the Safe Harbor Domestic Abuse Support Group and the Sheboygan Area Great Lakes Sport Fishing club.


"We wanted our charity to be something to do with the kids," Grace Brown said. "Kids are our future. If we don't get our kids out there, we (the fishing community) have no future."


Jeff Brown, 55, said the ultimate goal is to get children into fishing at an early age. He started in the sport himself around the age of 5.


"We've kind of always treated fishing as a lifelong sport, and trying to get kids involved," he said. "That way it gives them a recreational hobby for the rest of their lives, and something they can do."


From June and through August, the Browns host three events — the Coho, Powder Puff and Junior Coho fishing derbies. The funds from the Coho Derby are donated to Camp Y-Koda and the Sheboygan Area Great Lakes Sport Fishing Club. The funds from the Powder Puff Fishing Derby are donated to the Safe Harbor Domestic Abuse Support Group.


"It's not my money, it's the fishermen's. It's the county's," Grace Brown said. "I don't need to take any of the money."


Jeremiah Dentz, director of Camp Y-Koda, said the $10,000 that the Browns donate to the organization is used for its three-month wetlands ecology program and has helped the organization develop a fishing program that will debut later this year.


"We try to use the money from them to go into programs that benefit them," Dentz said. "The quality of the programs would not have been this good without the donation."


Some of the supplies that the camp staff has been able to replace include old broken microscopes and bamboo fishing poles, he said.


"We're extremely thankful," Dentz said. "I would just like to stress the generosity because they basically took on the (Coho) event and made us the beneficiary."


As a result of the donations, Dentz said the quality of the programs has improved and they now have a waiting list.


"Over the last three years, our fishing camps have been filled to capacity," Dentz said.


The Sheboygan Area Great Lakes Sport Fishing Club uses the $4,000 that it receives to send four high school students who are interested in a career in natural resources to the Department of Natural Resources skills center at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for a week, said Jim Schlegel, vice president of the fishing club.


"We use it for things that are Lake Michigan- and Department of Natural Resources-related," Schlegel said. "The Wharf owners are just wonderful. They donate so much of their personal time."


Schlegel added that the Browns have done a great job of promoting fishing.


Now that the holidays are over, Grace Brown looks forward to planning for the summer events.


"It's exciting to know that I can give that kind of money away," she said. "I want to thank the community for the help and support they have given us."