Fishermen’s Trust Set to Move Into Former Poole Property

by Katrina Liu, Vineyard Gazette, Thursday, July 3, 2025

The former fish plant will have some new tenants come 2026. Photo by Ray Ewing

A major real estate deal in Menemsha will provide a new home for the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust and help bring back a grocer and deli counter to the fishing village.

On Thursday, Sarah Bernard and James Seppala purchased 10 Basin Road, the former home to the Poole Fish Plant and Chilmark Chandlery, for $3.1 million. The couple will lease the property out to the fishing nonprofit, as well as Kevin and Liz Oliver, the former managers of the Menemsha Market.

The property has three buildings on it: the former fish plant, the former Menemsha Deli location and a cottage.

The Trust will open a new expanded headquarters in the fish plant building after securing a 99-year lease from Ms. Bernard and Mr. Seppala, and the Olivers plan to run a new market in the former deli location.

The promise of reinvigorating the long vacant property, once owned by Menemsha mainstay Everett Poole, while also maintaining the village’s roots, appealed to Ms. Bernard, whose family has been coming to the Island for more than 50 years.

“It’s not often that an opportunity like this presents itself,” Ms. Bernard said in a statement. “The 99-year lease to the MVFPT will allow it to meaningfully expand its work, while the additional properties can provide affordable housing and return a market to the harbor. Menemsha is a special place and we look forward to helping preserve its character for future generations.”

The Trust, which works to preserve the Vineyard’s fishing fleet and protect the marine habitat off the Island’s coast, will now be able to have office space for the first time, and the organization will be able to scale up its processing of fish and shellfish for consumers in the new building. 

“Their purchase of this irreplaceable property will not only jump start some of our dreams for our fishing industry and expand the larger community’s access to local seafood, but it gives us real stability in our work and keeps us in the heart of Menemsha and close to those we serve,” Shelley Edmundson, the executive director of the Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, said in a statement.

Both the Trust and the Olivers hope to have the new headquarters and market open for the summer of 2026.

Currently, the Trust operates out of a small building next to Larsen’s Fish Market. John Keene, the president of the fishermen’s preservation trust, said that having the larger space will be instrumental moving forward.  

“We want to keep Menemsha, and the Island fishing industry as a whole, as vibrant as we can,” he said. “If you don’t have infrastructure, it doesn’t matter how much fish you catch, you need the infrastructure and the places to support the fishermen and process and market.”

Former managers of the Menemsha Market, Kevin and Liz Oliver. Photo by Mark Lovewell

As the deal was being forged between the trust and Ms. Bernard and Mr. Seppala, Mr. Keene reached out to Mr. Oliver to see if he and his wife Liz would be interested in bringing their former business back. Mr. Oliver seized the opportunity and wants to do both a market and deli.

“We’re overwhelmed and excited at the same time,” he said. “We have room to do both a market and hopefully a deli as well and get to bring both of those businesses back, so to speak, which should be great.” 

The former Menemsha Market was damaged in an electrical fire in 2019 and has been sitting vacant ever since. That parcel was not involved in the deal, but Mr. Oliver recalled how the town was intertwined with the business.  

“It wasn’t some giant money maker, but to be involved in the community in that way, was really special,” he said. “There’s just been a big hole in Menemsha because of [the fire], so this really fills it.” 

The changes in the historic fishing village are a welcome revitalization, select board chair Marie Larsen said. 

Executive Director of the MVFPT, Shelley Edmundson. Photo by Ray Ewing

“I am really happy that we are going to have something and clean up in that area,” she said. “It’s about time we had something there. I’m thrilled.” 

Mr. Keene hopes this change is a chance for the town to further restore the historic character that is essential to the core of the village. 

“It brings another part of Menemsha back to life that slowly had a decline,” he said. “It also supplies hope that the industry can expand and gives a lot more opportunities.”

What happened to the 3,000 pounds of haddock seized in a fish-plant bust?

Shelley Edmundson is a founding member and executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a nonprofit devoted to sustaining the island’s fishing culture. Credit: Courtesy of Brooke Bartletta

by Arthur Hirsch  November 28, 2024

The New Bedford Light, newbedfordlight.org

https://newbedfordlight.org/what-happened-to-the-3000-pounds-of-haddock-seized-in-a-fish-plant-bust/

Acting Col. Patrick Moran of the Massachusetts Environmental Police had a problem: 3,000 pounds of confiscated haddock on the New Bedford waterfront. The law against undersized catch had been enforced, but now what?

Out of a total load of 11,000 pounds that came off the boat, the seized fish had come up short of the required 16-inch length, Moran said at the time. Seized on Thursday, June 20, as Moran was making rounds of local fish processing houses, there it sat in a plant that the MEP declined to name.

Fortunately, Moran, who has since retired from the force, had been around the docks awhile. He knew Shelley Edmundson, a founding member and executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a nonprofit devoted to sustaining the island’s fishing culture. He made a call.

His timing could have been better, and it could have been worse.

Edmundson was out on a ferry, but duty called. Among her organization’s enterprises is processing and packaging fish caught in local waters when the market for it sags, or if a planned sale falls through. The idea is to get fishermen a fair price, and not waste food.

Moran asked: Could she take this seized haddock?

The Trust has been around since 2011, but this was a first for the organization: an offer of undersized, illegal, confiscated fish. Lots of it. 

How Environmental Police ensure no confiscated fish are wasted

Donating fish is one way the Massachusetts Environmental Police disposes of confiscated catch, said Lt. Col. Chris Baker. The agency sometimes sells seized fish at auction. Through a formal legal process, it can have the auction proceeds declared a forfeiture, with the money used to pay costs and also dropped into the state’s general fund.

If confiscated fish are still alive, Baker said, they can also be returned to the waters whence they came. 

In consultation with agency supervisors, Baker said, “it’s the officer’s discretion” on how to dispose of confiscated fish in the state’s best interests. 

Baker could not say how often this sort of seizure happens. But he said a 3,000-pound haul is about in the mid-range of the confiscations he’s seen — from commercial operations in New Bedford, Boston and Gloucester to recreational fishing.

One shack, 2,262 pounds of haddock

Edmundson wants to make the most of every chance to get food into the hands of local food pantries to meet an ever-growing need. Yes, even on Martha’s Vineyard, summer playground of the glitterati. 

But, this big load of haddock would be complicated, she said. 

As Edmundson out at sea spoke to Moran, her organization’s little cedar-shingled shack near the beach in Menemsha was up to the gills in fish. 

The Trust had just taken in 600 pounds of fluke. The fisherman who caught it had gone out a few days earlier thinking he had a buyer for the catch he would bring in. By the time he returned the wholesaler had made other plans.

The fluke load was beyond the capacity of the shack, a wooden structure about the size of a studio apartment equipped with freezers, an ice maker, and a walk-in cooler with a lobster tank inside. There might be room for skilled hands to fillet 200 pounds a day, Edmundson said.

Edmundson had a tent and work tables quickly set up outside and corralled a crew of about six people to dive in, fillet the fish, and wrap it in one-pound packs for freezing and handing off to local food pantries.

Then comes a load of haddock.

“We never know what’s going to happen,” said Edmundson, who earned a doctorate in zoology — her research specialty was channeled whelks, a marine snail  — as the Trust was taking shape.

At that point, Moran was just asking Edmundson about 1,000 pounds. The number would ultimately grow to 2,262 pounds of the 3,000-pound haul.  

In June, Moran told the Light that some of the confiscated fish was also donated to Wampanoag groups on Martha’s Vineyard and on Cape Cod. He could not be reached for this story to confirm details.

Edmundson, meanwhile, was on the task. “I was on the ferry traveling, trying to orchestrate all this,” Edmundson said. 

She called Gary Yang, the president of Ocean C Star, a processing house on Homers Wharf in New Bedford, not far from where the haddock had been seized. 

Yang agreed to have his crew process the fish, put it into 10-pound bags, freeze it and load it onto one of the boats he has making regular trips to the island. As Edmundson recalled, the processed haddock arrived on Sunday, three days after it was seized.

The ton-plus of haddock made 560 pounds of fillet. The Trust’s processing cost was $3.25 a pound of whole fish, which came to $7,351, Edmundson said. 

Fortunately, the organization had the money on hand. Grants for these things do not make a steady, predictable flow, Edmundson said, but this past summer the Trust received three grants totaling $50,000.

“The timing worked out,” she said. 

She said some 460 pounds of the fillets went to the Island Food Pantry, the largest such operation on the island, run by Island Grown Initiatives, another nonprofit on Martha’s Vineyard. The rest was donated to Kinship Heals, an organization of the Wampanoag nation on the island.

“It was a really cool thing to be a part of,” Edmundson said. “You just knew you were on some sort of a ride … It was great to see the community coming together.”

Good timing for the local food pantries as well, said Merrick Carreiro, the food equity director for Island Grown Initiative of Martha’s Vineyard.

At the time, the Greater Boston Food Bank, usually a reliable source of fish, had none to provide, Carreiro said. The haddock donation “came at the perfect time,” she said. 

Established in 2006, Island Grown Initiative works to boost local food production, curb food waste, cultivate farming techniques that are climate friendly and expand access on the island to healthy, affordable food. 

There’s more need for a food pantry on Martha’s Vineyard than might be suggested by the island’s popular image as a haven for the rich and famous, Carreiro said.

“It’s so expensive to live here,” Carreiro said. “We have quite a significant older population. A lot of people live on fixed incomes.”

She said through October this year, the initiative’s Island Food Pantry has provided for more than 5,900 people, counting household members of those who picked up food at the location in Oak Bluffs. That’s more than a quarter of the island’s year-round population.

The haddock fillets “flew off the shelves,” she said, adding that she believed it was the first time the Island Grown Initiative had handled fish from a confiscated, illegal catch.

“What’s amazing is none of it went to waste, none of it,” she said. 

Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.

Local fishing nonprofit receives $50,000 donation

MV Times article, June 20, 2023, by Mia Vittimberga

Tito’s Handmade Vodka partnered with the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust (MVFPT) to fund a new gin boom, a type of hydraulic crane that helps unload heavy catches from fishing vessels.

According to Tito’s, the boom will help approximately 25 to 30 commercial fishing businesses, mainly on the Island. But they say it has the potential to help upwards of 100.

The boom unveiled in Menemsha during a ceremony last week.

MVFPT Executive Director Shelley Edmundson said that gin booms are critical to the fishing industry. “Without a gin boom, our harbor will start to lose its supply of local seafood, which would impact not only our commercial fishermen, but the restaurants and other wholesale and retail seafood markets,” Edmundson said.

Tito’s awarded MVFPT with $50,000. The majority of the funds went to the gin boom, with the remainder funding MVFPT’s Seafood Donation Program. This program donates seafood meals to food insecurity initiatives.

Finn Briggs, Tito’s Massachusetts State Manager, is from the Island. Last year, he nominated the MVFPT to take part in a charity event affiliated with “Love, Tito’s,” Tito’s philanthropy program.

Tito's then asked the MVFPT if there were any initiatives that they could support. “We really like to lean into what our employees are passionate about, and MVFPT was something our team members in Massachusetts were really passionate about,” Tito’s Director of Philanthropy Operations Lindsey Bates said.

MVFPT has faced challenges, especially during the COVID pandemic. “The whole seafood market and food supply chain broke down,” said Edmundson. Yet these challenges resulted in the launch of MVFPT’s Seafood Donation program. “The success of this program and its impact continues to grow,” said Edmundson. “Tito’s Handmade Vodka’s support has helped continue our ability to purchase seafood from local fishermen and offer high quality seafood to our food insecurity programs.”

Edmundson anticipates that MVFPT will continue to work on supporting the Island’s commercial fishing industry. MVFPT also hopes to do educational work and develop apprenticeship programs.