Delta Sculling Center-Everybody Sculls Inc

Programs: In early 2017 dsc participated in sacramento state aquatic center and peninsula indoor rowing championships (redwood city). Three of our adaptive rowers competed on indoor rowing machines along with able-bodied rowers. 4 more competed later in the spring at sacramento state's gold rush regatta after training all spring together along with 4 other scullers with disabilities. One of our adaptive rowers was invited (along with our head coach) to a usrowing paralympics developmental training camp in sarasota, florida for ten days of training at the usrowing national training center in march. Athletes across all of our programming ("able-bodied" adults, para-rowers and military veterans) participated in a variety of other competitive events including three regattas in sacramento and two in petaluma. These athletes also attended safety trainings in cpr and first aid as well as a clinic in how to recover from an unexpected capsize. Our adaptive rowing program expanded this year to include 9 new military veterans with disabilities (and in two cases, their families). These veterans competed both at southwest masters regionals in oakland (lake merritt) during the summer as well as in a fall regatta in october hosted by north bay rowing club in petaluma. All of the veterans in our program suffer from ptsd, the majority have associated brain injury, and several have physical challenges caused by their service - one with severe ataxia and others with orthopedic injuries. Despite all these challenges and just beginning to learn our sport, they raced successfully and safety with able-bodied partners during these events. In addition to holding twice weekly practices during the fall/winter and early sping for all our athletes, we held two practices a day, twice a week throughout the summer for all of our para-rowers and military veterans. We also ran a 3-week long summer experience for youth from under-resourced areas of our community. Our volunteers picked them up in their homes and transported them to/from the boathouse for each practice. We engaged 5 college students to assist us in running this program. Five volunteers from our adult program also assisted with this program. We were able to introduce 11 young people to this sport during the summer and 9 of them were youth who would not have had any access otherwise. In addition to providing transport, we did not charge them any participation fee. We also provided them with items necessary for rowing (e. G. Sunglasses, hat, t-shirt, boat shoes) and made sure there were healthy snacks and water available to them at each practice. Our newest initiative during 2017 was to begin to build strongly toward a year-round youth ("junior") team. We announced this project to the community by inviting 2-time olympian david banks and inspirational speaker/author arshay cooper to be the guest speakers at our promotional event ("row stockton rally") for this program, girls row stockton. We had about 75 people of all ages in attendance; the superintendent of one of our school districts and a city council person were also in the audience. We were fortunate to garner two significant articles in our local paper covering this event and the message it sent to the community. Also, to build support for girls row stockton, we applied for a grant through the pocock foundation. We wrote and won this grant as the community partner with a trustee from stockton unified school district (who is also a teacher in the aspire school system). With the help of this grant, up to 40 pe teachers will be trained how to land row and teach land rowing in 2018 and the school systems will be given 20 indoor rowing machines to keep and circulate among the classes of the teachers trained in this program. This should dramatically increase the # of youth who would be interested in joining our year-round team and gaining the many benefits known to be part of our sport at the youth level. Similarly to last year, 22 of our athletes again participated in concept2's holiday challenge to raise money for worldwide non-profits designated by concept2. We finished third in the world among all the groups of our size participating in the challenge. One of our military veterans (the oldest one at 71 yo) completed the most meters rowed (on land) during the month-long challenge - greater than 350,000m. All that we do could never be achieved on the small budget we manage to raise each year. We rely heavily on the support of volunteers (many retirees) who are willing to come to the boathouse once or twice a week for about four hours to help staff our practices so that those with disablities can row. To cover the two weekly mornings of training for our para-rowers and military veterans that happen year-round as well as the summer youth experiences, we rely on a core of 17 volunteers. We also have several volunteers who assist with coaching programming for our able-bodied rowers as well as those who work behind-the-scenes to maintain our equipment, plan our events, run our board and assist with promotional work, etc. In total, dsc volunteers clocked 4,531 hours of volunteer service in 2017. More than two years' worth of daily full-time service!