Lobsters for Lancers: Annual lobster sale to raise money for Diversity and Inclusion Club

The 89th annual lobster sale, benefiting the Diversity and Inclusion Club, is taking place this week with orders due on Tuesday, Nov. 10 by 5 p.m. 

Usually, the lobster sale raises money for the International Club at East, however, with COVID-19, there are no foreign exchange students at East this year, so the sale will benefit the Diversity and Inclusion Club. According to  John Trewolla, one of the organizers of the sale, this could become a permanent change.

Each lobster sells for $18, giving them a $5 profit per lobster, as they are bought at $13 from Patriot Lobster — a lobster farm in Bangor, Maine. Patriot Lobster has been supplying every lobster sale for the past 50 years when it was started.

The live lobsters are flown overnight directly to Kansas City from Maine and are picked up from the airport in the morning.

So far, 130 lobsters have been pre-ordered. According to Trewolla, the lobsters at grocery stores here are smaller and more expensive — which inspired the creators to form the sale. 

E-mails promoting the event are sent out through an email list and it’s been advertised on the daily announcements. The lobster sale used to be biannual, but after they discovered that it would take six weeks for the flyers to be delivered by the U.S. Post Office, it was changed to once a year five years ago. 

“If we didn’t start [planning] it all in the middle of the summer while the kids were still on summer break, we wouldn’t be able to get stuff done in time,” Trewolla said. “So we gave up trying to reach out to everybody on the school mailing list [through the USPS], and just started falling back on the customers that we’ve already had and done business with.”

Last year senior Graham Billingsley volunteered at the lobster sale pick-up date by giving customers their orders. He plans on volunteering this year as well. 

“It’s honestly really fun to just go hold a live lobster,” Billingsley said. “That’s not necessarily something that you would do in Kansas. It’s just kind of a fun way to do something that is kind of out of the ordinary.”

Lobsters are not available for sale on the pick-up date. Lobsters can be ordered by emailing trewolla@gmail.com — the designated lobster ordering email — or by dropping off the order form found in the East Announcements at 8236 Linden Drive Prairie Village, KS 66208. Curbside pickup is from 10:30-11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14 at the gymnasium entrance. Those with questions or who are wishing to volunteer can email johntrewolla@gmail.com.