(Arnolds Park)– Six non-profit organizations in the Iowa Great Lakes have been awarded grants from this year’s Walleye Weekend. A total of $20,000 was awarded. This year’s recipients:
Camp Foster YMCA ($1,000). These funds will be used to help share the joy of fishing and educate their campers on how to properly handle fish. The funds will be going towards quality supplies to give campers the best experience possible.
Center Lake Improvement & Protective Association ($1,000). These funds will go towards collecting water samples in four different locations within Center Lake for water quality purposes for Iowa Lakeside Lab.
East Okoboji Lakes Improvement Corporation ($3,500). These funds will assist with the injection of 190 gallons of Aquathol K into East Lake Okoboji, south of the Narrows shoreline, Upper Gar shoreline, and Minnewashta shoreline.
Okoboji Protective Association ($3,500). These funds will help with the (Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Project (CLAMP) to help in measuring water quality in the Iowa Great Lakes. Measuring water quality helps guarantee safer lakes for fishermen/women and their catches.
The Iowa Great Lakes Fishing Club ($5,000). This club hosts numerous kids fishing events for various organizations throughout the Iowa Great Lakes Region. Funds will be used to help support our local kids fishing events that will impact over 800(+) kids. Their event has 105 kids at Isthmus Park, 99
Okoboji 4th Graders, 5 Lakeside Lab events with 110 kids, 20 Camp Joy kiddos, 100 Spirit Lake Students and many others. Each participant gets a tackle box with tackle.
Spirit Lake Protective Association ($6,000). These funds will go to acquire and install a new fishing/public access dock at Marble Beach in collaboration with the Iowa DNR.
More than 2,200 anglers from 21 states participated in this year’s Walleye Weekend with one lucky person, Dawn Ingvaldson of Albert Lea, Minnesota, actually catching one of the 10 tagged walleye good for the grand prize of $43,000. Another tagged walleye was caught AFTER Walleye Weekend but that person wasn’t registered in the extended contest. Morgan Strauss of the Iowa Great Lakes Area Chamber has this reminder for those who ARE entered in the extended contest…
The first three tagged walleye caught will be paid out a portion of the extended contest registration proceeds for this year’s extended contest.
