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- EIN 13-4177814
- info@rockingtheboat.org
- 718-466-5799
- 812 Edgewater Road Bronx NY 10452 USA
- www.rockingtheboat.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Children & Youth, Education, Environment, Environmental Education, Youth Development Programs
Mission: Rocking the Boat empowers young people from the South Bronx to develop the self-confidence to set ambitious goals and gain the skills necessary to achieve them. Students work together to build wooden boats, learn to row and sail, and restore local urban waterways, revitalizing their community while creating better lives for themselves. Kids don't just build boats at Rocking the Boat, boats build kids.
Results: 1. Wooden Boatbuilding Participants may arrive at Rocking the Boat not knowing how to read a ruler and having never used tools, but high school students learn to work together to build full size traditional wooden rowing and sailing boats from scratch. Boatbuilding students—freshman and sophomores—and apprentices—juniors and seniors—study the plans and create and assemble all of the components from stem to stern, fasten the planks and frames, paint, and then launch their boats into the Bronx River. 2. Rowing Students board hand-built boats and learn to row, read maps, chart a course, and follow all the rules to safely travel on the water. Rowing drills and both short and long distance trips sharpen these skills and increase students’ and apprentices’ capacity to work as a team, think critically, and problem solve. Being able to captain a boat is a great way to show leadership, become physically fit, and connect with nature in ways impossible to experience from shore, and in a community that is better known for heavy industry and pollution than the beautiful waterways that surround it. 3. Sailing Young people go from never having been on a boat before to sailing solo and becoming certified U.S. Sailing Level 1 small boat instructors by the time they graduate from high school. Novice sailors learn theory, practice navigation techniques, and gain experience on Rocking the Boat’s fleet of traditional wooden sailboats, modern fiberglass and plastic training dinghies, and a 30-foot keelboat, and get to explore the Bronx and East Rivers in an way that is not otherwise accessible to youth in the South Bronx. 4. Bronx River Restoration Using scientific instruments, following detailed protocols, and working alongside environmental professionals, students and Apprentices collect water quality data, monitor birds and fish, reintroduce native plant and animal species, and perform restoration work that is helping to bring the Bronx River back to life after years of neglect.
Target demographics: low-income youth and the environment
Direct beneficiaries per year: over 4,000 local youth and community members
Geographic areas served: the South Bronx, New York City
Programs: boatbuilding, environmental research, and sailing