SHUCKS interns get hands-on training as farmers of the sea

Story and photos by Judy Benson

CTSG's SHUCKS aquaculture training program interns Brendon Goulette, left, and Danielle Calini met May 15 with Mike Bohan of the Guilford Shellfish Commission, which is helping fund the internship. — CTSG’s SHUCKS aquaculture training program interns Brendon Goulette, left, and Danielle Calini met May 15 with Mike Bohan of the Guilford Shellfish Commission, which is helping fund the internship.

Danielle Calini aspires to start a small shellfish farm where she would grow oysters and set an example for her three children about being a good steward of the environment.

Brendon Goulette wants to learn about aquaculture so he can bring first-had experience to a career in marine policy.

This summer, both Calini and Goulette will advance their goals as recipients of the SHUCKS internship at Sixpenny Oyster Farm in Noank. Now in its second year, the paid internship gives hands-on training in aquaculture through part-time work at Sixpenny under the guidance of farm owners Will Ceddia and Jason Hamilton. SHUCKS (Sharing Hands-On Understanding and Cultivating Knowledge on Shellfish) was created by Sixpenny in collaboration with Connecticut Sea Grant. The interns are paid by a grant from the Nature Conservancy and CT Sea Grant, supplemented this year with a $1,500 scholarship from the Guilford Shellfish Commission in memory of former chairman Peter Charland.

“This is going to help prepare our interns for the next part of their journey,” said Mike Gilman, CT Sea Grant assistant extension educator, during a brief ceremony May 15 at the Guilford Shellfish Commission meeting. The funds from the commission will be used to help equip Calini and Goulette with aquaculture gear such as bib overalls and boots and fund future educational opportunities such as a seafood safety training class, Gilman said.

Will Ceddia, left, and Jason Hamilton empty a bag of oysters grown in Beebe Cove to clean and sort them.

Both of the interns from the first year of SHUCKS, he added, are now working in aquaculture, one as a shucker at a local restaurant who was able to apply his internship for college credit, and the other in establishing his own farm.

Goulette, who recently graduated from UConn with an undergraduate degree in marine science, has already started at Sixpenny, harvesting oysters and moving them to a depuration area to flush out pollutants in preparation for sale.

“It’s been fun,” he said.

Carlini, who completed the Foundations of Shellfish Farming course offered by CT Sea Grant in 2023, will start at Sixpenny in a few weeks.

“I really need to get hands-on experience,” said Calini, who now works as a nurse.

Sixpenny co-owner Hamilton said he and his partner are the only full-time employees of the farm, so the internship has been a “win-win” for both the interns and the farm, especially during the busy summer months.

“It is a bit of a learning curve for people just coming out on the farm,” he said. “But it’s definitely a help having extra sets of hands on the farm. We enjoy having them, and we and the other aquaculture farms in the area are all trying to develop the industry on the coast.”