The Island Creek Oysters Foundation is helping hundreds of families in Haiti get started in the business of aquaculture, allowing them to cultivate salt water fish rich in protein using methods similar to those employed by Island Creek Oysters to cultivate shellfish oysters in Duxbury Bay.

Last year, the Island Creek Oysters Foundation donated $100,000 to the Caribbean Harvest Foundation, which has brought sustainable fish farming to thousands of rural Haitians.

On Saturday, Sept. 8, the Island Creek Oysters Foundation will hold its annual fundraiser, “Friends of Haiti,” on Duxbury Beach from 6:30 to 11:30 p.m. Tickets cost $250.

The party will feature 16 of the best chefs from Boston and New York City, unlimited oysters and drinks, live music and dancing, cigars and a fire pit under the stars.

“The food is going to be kind of stellar, really quite a few notches above what people are used to. It’s rare to have all this culinary talent under one roof, let alone under one tent on the beach,” Sherman said. “It’s going to be a great event. We’re hoping to donate $100,000 to the project in Haiti.”

For tickets, go to islandcreekfoundation.org or call 781-934-2028.

Dr. Valentin Abe, the founder of the Haiti-based Carribean Harvest Foundation, will attend.

Abe, who was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2010, will also be giving a talk Thursday, Sept. 6, at the Duxbury Bay Maritime School in Clifford Hall from 7 to 8 p.m. The presentation is free and open to the public.

“It’s about showing people the incredible value that aquaculture provides to people in need,” Sherman said.

“Valentin will say that our mission is not simply to put food in people’s bellies, but to create as many jobs as possible so people can feed themselves. They can put food in their own bellies,” Sherman said.

Sherman, 27, is an English major who helped run a boatyard in New Zealand and has sailed professionally around the world. Now he makes his living in aquaculture, a relatively new field that he said is the fastest growing means of food production in the world.

“It’s definitely hard work, just as any farming is,” Sherman said. “It’s very repetitive, but it can be very rewarding.”

As vice president and marketing director for Island Creek, Sherman now helps run the business of Island Creek and the foundation.

He said the mission of the Island Creek Oysters Foundation is to promote aquaculture as a means of sustainable production of protein.

Sherman said protein is an expensive food to produce and consume in terms of money and impact to the environment.

“It’s that food that those who don’t have means don’t have access to,” he said.

Sherman said it takes a lot of grain and fossil fuels to get one pound of beef from cows or chickens.

It takes six to 20 pounds of feed to produce one pound of beef, and with cows, there are environmental concerns with methane from cow waste, he said.

However, the shellfish grown in Island Creek Oysters’ Duxbury Bay farm leverage the natural nutrients in their environment, fixing nitrogen and filtering waste out of the water, he said.

“You can produce protein much more efficiently with aquaculture,” Sherman said.

“We don’t feed our oysters that we grow. They feed themselves,” he said. “They’re a net benefit to the environment.”

Island Creek Oysters Foundation donations were used to help Caribbean Harvest buy fish farming starter kits of fish cages and “fingerlings,” or baby fish.

The donation helped 340 families in Haiti get started in aquaculture. In the first year, the families each made close to $2,800. That represented a 10-fold increase in annual income, allowing the families to send their children to school, buy clothes, and buy motorcycles in order to get to the nearest town, Sherman said.

He said Caribbean Harvest is helping families who are destitute and living along Lake Azuei and Lake Peligre in inland Haiti. The families are living in mud huts with no running water or sewer, he said.

In Haiti, the farmers are cultivating Tilapia, fish that live in fresh and salt water. It takes 1.4 pounds of vegetable feed to produce one pound of food, he said.

Sherman said some of the proceeds from the sale of the fish to markets and hotels in Port-au-Prince will be used to construct school buildings and make doctors available for the rural fish farmers.

He said proceeds will also be used to build housing for the farmers. The first project should be completed in January, and will provide housing with water and sewer for 50 families along the lake. Abe hopes the project serves as a model for other housing projects on the lakes, Sherman said.

“It’s having that conversation about where we can fit aquaculture, this new tool we have, into the food production system in a way that greatly improves it for everyone, but most importantly for people who are hungry or poor,” Sherman said.