Chris Smith: Among all of the Sonoma County crab feeds, the late Mark Sell’s has a leg up

We’re lucky. This time of the year around here, charitable all-you-can-eat crab feeds are nearly as ubiquitous as Starbucks.

Shouldn’t that be Starbuckses?

Regardless, the seasonal proliferation of nonprofit Dungeness feasts has some of us debating which are the best, or the most worthy.

There are folks in metropolitan Sebastopol, I am aware, who contend that No. 1 is the crab feed conceived by late banker, hardware man and community angel Mark Sell. He and his Rotary Club members started a feed to help teachers who too often spend their own money for classroom essentials and extras, or go without.

One thing unusual about the Sebastopol Rotary feed, which takes place with two seatings on Saturday night, is that the club buys live crabs from The Tides in Bodega Bay, not crabs that have been cooked and cracked and boxed.

It’ll be a major production Friday when a truck full of crabs pulls up and the Rotarians set to boiling them.

The spirit of Mark Sell, you can be sure, will be present.

Mark came to Sebastopol in the early 1980s to manage the town’s Bank of America branch. Among the things he came to love about west Sonoma County were the country cornucopia of merchandise and the clientele and the vibe of Sebastopol Hardware.

Mark’s friendship with proprietor Jack Jones led him to leave BofA and become a partner in the store. He came to notice the teachers who shopped at the store for supplies that one might assume would be provided by their schools.

Conversations with teachers impressed on Mark that they need help to pay not only for materials, but for potentially valuable educational activities and opportunities for which there is no budget.

He said once, “Teachers have the ability to provide creative programs and wonderful education, but often the thing that holds them back is money. We recognize this need and are doing something about it.”

“We” was his Rotary Club, which 14 years ago created the Mark Sell Rotary Teacher Grant program and began funding it with proceeds of the club’s crab feed.

To date, Rotarians have granted teachers $299,317.

Mark, the Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce’s 2007 Citizen of the Year, was just 66 when he died in 2017. His mission to boost local schools and the crab feed that funds it lives on.

See more at sebastopolrotary.com.

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THE OTHER FÚTBOL: As Herman J. Hernandez prepared to visit family in Mexico, the community titan from Guerneville packed enough 49er championship caps and shirts and other paraphernalia to outfit a team.

The goodies assure that Herman, founder of the youth-serving Los Cien Sonoma County, will be very popular at what might well be the biggest Super Bowl party in all of León.

Herman, named 2018 Citizen of the Year by the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, said football doesn’t excite people in Mexico like fútbol, or soccer, does.

“In the Mexico City airport,” he said from León, “I was the only one who had a 49er championship cap on.”

He expects that during the game the tamales his sister-in-law and nieces made will go well with his contribution of Carlos Chavez Cellars wines from Healdsburg.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.