Florida Fishing Academy Inc

Results: Last year, we finished renovating the old workshop at the Riviera Beach Maritime Academy. We received funding from the Children’s Services Council and United Way to expand our current job-training program to include, for the first time, a pre-apprentice initiative. To help students grow creatively, the shop is also open to students who want to work on a school, art or science fair project. In 2018, we completed our Mobile Marine Lab, complementing our out-of-school, afterschool and summer camp programs by teaching elementary and middle school-aged students from kindergarten through eighth grade about environmental awareness, water flow and erosion. The lab program also trains them in problem-solving and other life skills, using hands-on activities that emphasize open-ended and collaborative scientific learning. With this new hands-on educational program, our students, at their school, explore a working model of Florida’s watershed and learn about the effects of pollution and beach erosion and how it relates to the marine-life food chain.

Target demographics: We are working with the youth in after-school and out-of-school programs to safe our marine animals andour seas.

Direct beneficiaries per year: 3,500 youth

Geographic areas served: Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida

Programs: Using marine-related activities, we teach children a healthy lifestyle and constructive hobby; guide them away from drugs and violence; engage them in efforts to preserve Florida’s fragile natural resources; and introduce them to the marine industries as a potential career path. As part of our mission, we aspire to instill positive values in the young people we educate and mentor. These values include a respect for the law; a responsibility to preserve and protect the environment; a commitment to personal health and hygiene; a desire to be stewards of safe local neighborhoods; a belief in the value of education; and an urge to be positive role models.