For the last five years the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula and the Kenai River Foundation, an association of professional fishing guides have partnered to take 60 some local youth fishing on the Kenai River in August. Mark Gardner, Kenai River fishing guide took 8 year old Soldotna Boys & Girls Club member Kendra for her first outing on the river and she landed her first silver salmon, “Any time you can get kids out and involved with fishing that’s what it’s all about. Watching her land her first fish is as exciting for me as it was for her. Making future fishers for sure and I always enjoy participating in this community event and I’ll be back every year. These are lifetime memories on the greatest salmon river in the world,” Gardner told the Dispatch.

Sen. Peter Micciche has been involved with the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula years before he ever ran for his first public office and was also on hand for this year’s event, “It’s always been about meeting a need in our community. You look over here and see a bunch of bright smiling faces coming off that boat with fish knowing that they’ll remember this day the rest of their lives you can’t help but feel good. I really want to thank the Kenai River Foundation for stepping up and doing things for the kids in our community. These guys could have been out with paying customers all day today. The river is hot with fish right now and they chose to take our kids fishing contributing their time, boats, gear and equipment to put the smiles on our kid’s faces and we appreciate that. The reality is a lot of these kids have never been on the river even though they live here and in couple of instances I talked with a couple of kids who had never been on a boat. So this is a great thing to get kids excited about the river and learning how important the habitat and environment is and then they got to catch some fish so we’re very grateful to the Foundation and the sponsors of this event. Tammy Murray with the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce made it a great day for our boys and girls to be out on the river today,” said Micciche. To learn more about activities of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula log on to www.positiveplaceforkids.com