Festival Time, Everglades City Style

After a one-year hiatus, the Everglades Seafood Festival is poised to make its return, continuing a tradition that began 52 years ago, only interrupted in 2021 by pandemic-related restrictions on gatherings. 

Set for February 11 through February 13, 2022, the popular event features live music, crafts, children’s carnival rides, adult and nonalcoholic beverages, and an assortment of delectable foods, highlighted by, fittingly, an abundance of locally sourced seafood. 

As always, festival proceeds are dedicated to benefitting Everglades City’s children, churches and the entire community and this year, for the first time, the event is being hosted and organized by the Florida State Stone Crabbers Association. City officials asked the group to step into the role following the death, last March, of long-time organizer Carol Foss, who was president of the Everglades Betterment Association. 

“Who better to do it in the self-proclaimed stone crab capital of the world, Everglades City, than the Florida Stone Crabbers Association?” said Kelly Kirk, an association founder, along with Carrie Doxsee and Holly Levingston-Dudley. “We all know that children are our future and there are a lot of kids who can benefit from an improved rec center, scholarships, or uniforms for their sports teams. We don’t ever want them to feel like they’re forgotten. The seafood festival has historically been a great money maker and a supporter of the kids.”

The three all have family members who are commercial crabbers, as well as sharing deep, deep roots in the Everglades City community. They’ve devoted long hours to spearheading the organizing, while also managing full-time jobs and family responsibilities. 

“We’ve been working on it for seven months; eating, sleeping and breathing it,” said Levingston-Dudley. “We have a lot of new things this year. We tried to focus on bringing the locals back into it. All the seafood vendors were vetted for what their products are, where they’re going to get them and how they’re going to cook it. We wanted to make sure it’s all fresh caught, local seafood; nothing imported and nothing farm raised. We want to highlight what our area’s all about and make it a lot of fun for people and give them some good food and good music and educate them, too.”

The festival will have 180 booths of vendors, crafts people and nonprofit organizations, as well as 27 food booths offering standard fare, such as hotdogs, hamburgers, pizza and barbeque, as well as more eclectic offerings, such as Greek and Brazilian cuisine. 

While seafood from local waters will dominate the dining options, there will also be regional delicacies such as fresh and smoked alligator meat, smoked mullet, swamp cabbage, and the pièce de resistance, stone crabs from Grimm’s Stone Crab seafood store in Everglades City. The only non-local seafood will be Maine lobster and each booth will have kid friendly items for sale. 

As is customary, students from Everglades City High School will be the sole vendor of water, soda and Gatorade as a fundraiser for its grad night, prom, homecoming and senior trips. Doxsee said a major sponsor is needed to cover the initial purchase cost of the beverages. The school’s culinary class will have one of the festival’s new additions with its booth selling shrimp cocktail. 

The carnival will again be part of the fun and this year, children from Everglades City and the surrounding area will ride for free, thanks to an event sponsor’s donation. 

Another feature debuting this year will make its presence known with a bang and bursts of color. For the first time there’ll be a fireworks display. It’s set for Family Night, which is Friday, February 11. Singer-songwriter Charlie Pace of Copeland will sing the Star-Spangled Banner at 7:30 PM as the pyrotechnics are exploding into the sky. 

Nonprofits will have a strong presence at the festival, among them the Stone Crabbers Association, which Doxsee, Kirk, and Levingston-Dudley formed in 2020 as an advocacy, information and education organization for the industry. The association’s booth will be split between merchandise bearing the group’s logo and as an informative section about the stone crab industry. 

“We’ll have some stone crab traps on display, a model boat on display to show the mechanics of how we work this industry, and a little more information about how Everglades City became what it is today,” said Kelly. “The Collier County Museum is working on a booth with a lot of commercial fishing history, as well. Although it’s a lot of fun with new entertainment, crafts and new vendors, a lot of it is going to be about bringing the festival back to its roots. We started this festival as a way to highlight the commercial fishing industry in this area and how unique it is to our area.” 

The ranks of nonprofits will include: 

Festival t-shirt sales benefitting the Everglades City School Athletic Department’s Booster Club.

Everglades City Lions Club selling hamburgers and hot dogs to raise money for eyeglasses for the needy. 

Copeland Baptist Church selling sweet tea.

Cold Blooded Industries with a display of alligators, owls, snakes, hawks and crocodiles to teach the importance of conservancy.

The Chokoloskee Church of God youth group selling baked goods to fund their summer trips to Wimauma church camp.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America raffling off a Harley Davidson. 

St. Matthew's House homeless shelter will be having a food drive.

The live entertainment lineup is highlighted by an exciting group of headliners, some with impressive bloodlines, including Hank Williams IV and Whey Jennings, the grandson of Waylon Jennings. Joining them will be Ryan Bingham, a singer-songwriter and actor who appears on the hit TV show "Yellowstone,"; Ira Dean, formerly of the country trio Trick Pony; Wes Shipp, of Naples, and Champ Jaxon, an 11-year-old, blues rocker guitarist from Punta Gorda, who recently appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

Doxsee, Kirk and Levingston-Dudley praised the sponsors who have stepped forward with financial and other donations, as well as the invaluable assistance they’ve provided in helping them, as first-time festival organizers. 

“We all started on the ground floor and we’ve had to figure it out as we go,” said Kelly. “We’ve been blessed to have some good support from local companies to help put this festival on. Without them we wouldn’t be doing it like we are.”

Everglades City Mayor Howell Grimm, Jr., praised the trio for taking over organizing the festival. 

“I really got excited when they decided to do it,” he said. “They seem to have the passion and the time to do it, so it was nice for them to step up. We’ve got some great entertainment and it looks like it’s going to be a fantastic weekend for everybody. It’ll be a good time.”  

Doxsee and Kirk credited Levingston-Dudley with doing yeoman’s work in making the event happen. 

“Without Holly’s commitment to Everglades City and this festival, it would not go off like it’s about to, it would not be the weekend we’re expecting without her heart and soul put into it,” said Kirk. “Carrie and myself, our friends and our families, everyone’s who’s been involved, we’re all here to help and fill in wherever we can. This festival will be what it is going to be because of Holly and her dedication.”

For more information about the Everglades City Seafood Festival, including making donations, visit evergladesseafoodfestival.org/.