Fishing boats are docked in Newport in this 2017 file photo.
Oregon Sea Grant
Newport, Oregon, resident Taunette Dixon knows how hard it can be to make ends meet in the fishing industry.
“My family is a four generation fishing family,” Dixon said. “I married somebody that came from a four generation fishing family, so we’ve kind of been immersed in it all of our lives.”
The last three years have been the worst Dixon’s ever had with the small boat the couple runs out of Newport. While she said her family is able to weather the challenging years, she’s seen need for aid grow through the nonprofit group she volunteers with, Newport Fishermen’s Wives.
The group started as a social club in 1970, Dixon said, to support families who had a member away working on a boat for weeks or months at a time. Over the years, the group reworked itself into a nonprofit and volunteer-run organization that advocates for fishing families, provides education about the industry, and maintains Newport’s fishermen’s memorial for men and women lost at sea.
Fishing is a notoriously challenging and, at times, dangerous industry. It’s also a historically lucrative one for the state of Oregon. The industry generated more than $500 million in income for the statewide economy as recently as 2019, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But the pandemic hit nearly every industry hard in 2020 when the world economy came to a halt. The fishing industry was no different, and three years later it is still struggling to rebound. There were signs of hope in 2021, but state economists said the industry only brought in $231 million in revenues in 2022.
Dixon said that while the last few years have been especially challenging, it was about a decade ago the group noticed an increasing amount of families struggling around the December holidays. The Dungeness crab season, which normally kicks off on Dec. 1 and is profitable, hadn’t truly ramped up as Christmas approached.
Families were worried about basic needs, Dixon said, let alone gifts for kids.
“We decided that every family deserved to have a pantry full of food at Christmas,” Dixon added. “And we felt like we wanted to provide children in these families with presents so they had a present to unwrap under the tree.”
For Christmas 2023, the nonprofit prepared presents for 300 children.
Dixon said Fishermen’s Wives supports families directly working in the commercial fishing industry in addition to those working for businesses that service the industry, like processing facilities.
She expects the need to continue in 2024 as families work to recover from the economic challenges of the past few years.
“Our fuel prices have gone up, the interest rate on our boat loans, all of our stuff,” Dixon said. “But we’re getting less money for our product. Especially the small boats are really struggling to keep afloat, to be able to make their boat payments, to be able to keep a crew. It’s really, really hard.”