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Oregon Coast Aquarium Experiences Stellar Year

(Newport, Oregon) – 2007 kicked proverbial behind for the Oregon Coast Aquarium, with a bevy of bountiful achievements which helped local charities, assisted hospitals, boosted its own attendance and generally just created a buzz around the state and the nation.

“The Aquarium is a non profit facility itself, and relies on visitor-related revenues, grants, and donations to finance our annual operations,” said Carrie Lewis, Aquarium Marketing Director. “We understand the challenges of raising funds to accomplish a mission, so we want to thank the community and some of the organizations we worked with in 2007.”

Some of the Aquarium’s collaborations with other non-profits included:

A powder brown tang and a long nose hawkfish in the "Stay Tuned for Oddwater" exhibit at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Yaquina Bay Cleanup - Aquarium staff teamed up with SOLV and Thompson’s Sanitary for the annual week-long effort to clean up the bottom of Yaquina Bay. Volunteers brought in nearly 5,000 pounds of marine debris, thanks to the dedicated divers and kayakers who helped clean up the tide line and the bottom of the bay during Earth Week.

Zimba Marimba Benefit Concert - The Oregon Coast Aquarium hosted the annual benefit concert for My Sisters’ Place on June 16, Lincoln County’s only Domestic violence shelter, raising thousands of dollars for the shelter.

Stuff a Bus - The Oregon Coast Aquarium and KYTE-FM teamed up for the annual “Stuff-a-Bus,” collecting and filling a school bus with school supplies for Newport and Waldport schools.

Car Show Benefit Raffle - The Aquarium presented My Sisters’ Place with $1,470 toward adopting a room at the new domestic violence shelter, currently under construction. The donation came from proceeds of a raffle at the Aquarium’s Labor Day Weekend Car Show.

The 2007 Oyster Cloyster - November 3 at the Aquarium, raised funds for the Oregon Coast Community College Aquarium Science Program. An evening of indulgence in exotic oyster appetizers and other dishes creatively prepared by professional chefs. Proceeds from the event went directly to funding educational programs and materials.

Educational Outreach - Oregon Coast Aquarium educators embarked on a new season of outreach, bringing marine science programs to schools in counties all over Oregon. Students in kindergarten through fifth grade learn about fascinating topics from whales and invertebrates to sharks and marine mammals.

Creatures of the Night - The Aquarium’s annual Halloween party, broke its attendance record for the second year in a row October 27, with 2,480 people attending and contributing 3,375 pounds of food to Lincoln County Food Share, over 1,000 pounds more than last year.

The Sea of Lights - enjoyed healthy attendance despite the strongest wind storm of the year, drawing 2,122 visitors and collecting 2,926.5 lbs of food for Lincoln County Food Share.

The Aquarium thanked the community by offering residents of Lincoln County “Dollar Days,” with Aquarium admission reduced to $1 March 9-10. The Aquarium also offered Lincoln County hospitality employees free admission to the Aquarium during the third annual Hospitality Days May 1 - 27. Front line employees at hotels, motels, restaurants, food service workers and gas station employees got in for free and brought 2 guests for half price admission each.

There were numerous memorable moments for the Oregon Coast Aquarium in 2007, which included upward attendance numbers, a national exhibit, the implementation of cutting edge technology and the saving of a great number of sea creatures over the year.

- Aquarium attendance continued to climb; up 16 percent in the last two years.

- A traveling Smithsonian exhibition, “In Search of Giant Squid,” brought two of the world's foremost squid experts to Oregon for opening weekend programs May 26, showing the first footage of a Giant Squid by the scientist who took it.

- In a collaborative effort between the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital, a video camera was installed in the Passages of the Deep exhibit in May, feeding live digital images to the hospital’s emergency department waiting area. The camera uses state of the art technology to produce real-time video images using an embedded Mpeg4 encoder.

- The Oregon Coast Aquarium introduced five broadnose sevengill sharks and several thousand anchovies to its Passages of the Deep exhibit on June 27. The story was covered by The Oregonian and Portland TV stations.

- Saving the World One Rockfish at a Time, opened July 3 at the Aquarium, a new exhibit created by six Oregon Coast Aquarium youth volunteers. Secretary of State Bill Bradbury presented the volunteers with an award for the project, which the students presented at the National Summit on Oceans and Coasts in Washington D.C. in November, 2006. Their project addresses problems that include misidentification and barotrauma in rockfish.

- Parents Magazine August issue named the Oregon Coast Aquarium among the best aquariums in the U.S. in an article titled, “The 10 Best Aquariums for Kids.”

- The Aquarium opened Three Decades of Coastal Photography by Scott Blackman. The gallery in Passages has become a venue for changing visual art exhibits, complementing the habitats in Passages displays.

- Leopold Ketel & Partners, the Aquarium’s Portland ad agency, won a Public Relations Society of America award for Claws integrated campaign marketing, and a Portland Ad Federation Rosey Award for the radio ad, “Cool, Cool Sea Lions.”

Lincoln County voters said, “Yes” to Measure 21-119 to boost the Lincoln County transient lodging tax from 6 percent to 9 percent, with the resulting revenue dedicated for use by the Lincoln County Fairgrounds (40 percent), Oregon Coast Aquarium (30 percent), and county general fund (30 percent).

- The cover of the December issue of Oregon Business magazine featured a face familiar to Oregon Coast Aquarium staff; that of Al Gleason, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Aquarium, for his “unswerving focus” in approaching the Aquarium’s financial crisis of 2002.

Oregon Coast Aquarium. 2820 SE Ferry Slip Rd. Newport, Oregon. 541.867.3474. www.aquarium.org.

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