ROCKLAND – Altogether 33 local merchants plan to be involved in a giveaway program Saturday to help the local lobster industry.

Heidi Stevens, co-owner of By George Jewelers and organizer of the movement, said Wednesday the idea to help local lobstermen came to her early one morning last week.

“We’re buying lobsters to give away,” she said. “Almost every business has bought into it – to give away lobsters to help our community as much as we can.”

The daughter of a fisherman and sister of a lobsterman and a fisherman, Stevens said she used her connections to find enough lobsters to buy.

“The lobstermen are hurting pretty badly now,” she said. “I’ve been in business for 27 years, and if it wasn’t for these lobstermen and these fishermen buying from us all those years, I probably wouldn’t have it.

“We’re trying to give back to them what they’ve given us for 27 years,” Stevens said.

She said the public doesn’t have to do anything to take part but show up and participate in a drawing at each store. Each participating business will give away at least 10 lobsters.

Some merchants will do even more. Stevens said she will give up to a dozen lobsters per customer with each purchase at her jewelry store, and other downtown stores are doing the same.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I own the jewelry store,” she said. “They call me ‘The Diamond Lady’ around here.”

Besides sponsoring the giveaway, the organizers are planning a live lobster sale at $3.50 a pound from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the parking lot of the New England Express convenience store, 191 Park St.

“We’re having a back-of-the-truck sale,” she said.

“The lobstermen have been so supportive on this,” she said. “They say, ‘If you need more, we’ll get you more.'”

Stevens said she expects the event to sell or give away more than 1,000 lobsters Saturday.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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