Before the beaches thaw out and boats fill the waterways around Wareham, the Community Economic Development Authority is looking to promote the waterfront in some new ways.

CEDA Director Sal Pina said he was approached last spring by Lighthouse Media Solutions, publishers of New England Boating magazine and website. He said they did a feature on New Bedford Harbor last year and approached Pina to see if he would be interested in funding articles and videos featuring Onset.

"It's our most valuable resource," said CEDA board member Robert Brady, talking about the waterfront. "Anything we can do to help promote it is a good thing."

Pina refers to New England Boating as a, "table top" magazine, which he described as one with glossy pages that circulates a few times a year and sits on counters or coffee tables.

At Tuesday's Selectmen meeting, Pina said New England Boating magazine has 35,000 subscribers, a website with 300,000 unique annual visitors and a monthly TV show on NESN - which reaches over four million households.

"Being the entrepreneur that I am, I said to them if you can get some private sector involvement, I'll consider going to my board and asking for some money," Pina said.

Pina said the publication was able to find $6,000 through local ads so the CEDA board decided to allocate $6,000 from economic development funds for the project. He said Lighthouse Media would provide the town with copies of the article and all the raw and finished video footage to put up on the town website.

Pina said the magazine would also promote the Summer of Celebration activities. He said the article would be coming up at the end of this month and the video will be made at a later date.

"As an economic development marketing tool to help bring tourists and generate revenue for Onset I think it's a fantastic opportunity," Pina said.