Hunts Point Nonprofit Helps Kids Set Sail For Success
When I was younger we would mostly drive through Hunts Point as a shortcut to get back on the Bruckner. On our back-road route, my dad used to tell me about the area during the late ’70s through ’90s: If you drove down some of the roads in Hunts Point you were likely to see ladies in trench coats walking around amid the industrial area. It was a dark era for the South Bronx—the drug epidemic was widespread, it seeped into people’s buildings, corridors and apartments; building abandonment was rampant. While working for the City of New York, my dad frequented communities in Hunts Point, Soundview, Castle Hill and Parkchester. Today, it’s still an industrial mecca but tremendous efforts are being footed by the community to improve quality of life, increase access to green spaces and establish equity.
Driving down Lafayette Avenue, I turn left onto Edgewater Road and see a brightly colored building up ahead. That’s where I’m headed. As I enter a spacious, modernly designed foyer, above me hangs a rowboat. Not something you see every day, especially in the Bronx.
Rocking The Boat (RTB), a nonprofit, was established in 1996 as a volunteer project running out of an East Harlem junior high school. It then had a short stay at Hostos Community College before moving to its home at 812 Edgewater Road in the early 2000s.
At Rocking The Boat, school-aged kids and young adults build wooden boats among many things. In fact, their slogan reads, “Kids don’t just build boats, boats build kids.” You wouldn’t expect to find this retreat on the water, amongst auto body shops, industrial bakeries and wholesale vegetable markets. Nevertheless, it’s a perfect location for RTB; the campus sits adjacent to the Bronx River, an ecological gem that runs 23 miles from the Kensico Dam in upper Westchester County down through the Bronx and opens into the East River, acting as an interactive classroom for all RTB programming.
Using the dock next door at Hunts Point Riverside Park, students regularly launch rowboats and sailboats out onto the Bronx River. Luckily, the two tenants sharing river access rarely get deliveries so RTB kids have VIP access to the river’s southern reach.
As I finish up my tour of the facility with founder Adam Green, teens arrive from Advanced Math & Science II, a South Bronx high school. The room fills with teenage noise. “I never thought that I would be on a boat on that water [Bronx River],” Haley Seda, a student who is part of the sailing department, told me earlier. “I never even passed by here.” Haley, 15, now knows all the technicalities of sailing, and is one of over 200 students who come here weekly, sometimes spending two to four days in the RTB building or out on the water.
Many of the students take part in a long-term youth development program, which follows them through the end of high school. They choose one of three areas as their focus: boatbuilding, sailing or environmental.
Each department focuses on different skill sets. Boatbuilding is just as it seems, a hands-on experience building boats from scratch, utilizing physical tools and teamwork. RTB purposefully chooses boat designs that have historical significance to New York City waterways. The sailing program teaches all the technical skills required to handle a row, sail or steamboat—becoming certified U.S. Sailing Level 1 small boat instructors by the end of the program. And the environmental program is crucial to the future health of the river: Students and apprentices collect water quality data, observe marine life, work to reintroduce native plant and animal species, and actively implement recovery work to the river, which per RTB is helping to bring the “Bronx River back to life after years of neglect.”
Once they achieve a technical skill level and capacity for personal growth, students then move on to become apprentices. In this phase, they gain work experience, earning both a wage and college credit. Upon graduating from the program, students are guaranteed lifetime membership and are eligible for future employment opportunities.
Throughout participation, students receive wrap-around services from licensed social workers on site. They are supported in everything from social and emotional counseling to help in graduating from high school and applying to colleges. What has been created for students is a space for self-growth, room to work with their community and a team of people consistently rooting for them to succeed on water and land.
From a macro perspective, students are also contributing to their community needs. Through the water quality testing and river monitoring, they help collect data about native birds, oysters, diadromous fish and trash accumulation. According to Jamie, the environmental program director, “the river is a brackish mix of salt water; salinity varies with the tides,” she says. “It creates a special ecological environment, an estuary. After rainforests, estuaries are some of the most ecologically rich environments in the world.”
Every Saturday from the end of May to September, Rocking The Boat opens its doors to the public and offers free rowing and sailing to all residents of New York City, and beyond. And all this happens out of their Hunts Point hub, the poorest community east of the Mississippi, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Adam reminds me before I head out, back towards the Bruckner, “There is an opportunity here in our own community. You don’t have to go to other places to get that.” Amid this ubiquitous pale shadow, the river breathes new life and magic into the city.
812 Edgewater Rd
