“The best way to learn is to teach someone else. That’s a central part of our structure. Giving kids the opportunity to lead and teach,” says Jaye Pockriss, the development director of Rocking the Boat.
The non-profit, founded in 1998, serves the kids of New York’s economically disadvantaged Hunts Point neighborhood in the South Bronx. Some rarely leave the neighborhood, much less venture onto the Hudson River or Long Island Sound.
Rocking the Boat’s students start off practicing in the Bronx River, the waters that lap the shores of this peninsular section of the borough.
“The statistics alone — poverty numbers double those of New York City as a whole, the lowest high school graduation rate, the highest number of violent felonies — paint a bleak picture. It’s very hard for kids to be successful in this environment,” Pockriss adds.
RELATED: Hobie Waves Hit the Hudson to Benefit Youth Sailing
Best known for working with high school students to build traditional wooden boats, Rocking the Boat took delivery earlier this year of four Hobie Wave sailboats used during the New York America’s Cup World Series as part of the AC Endeavour youth sailing program. The Waves have become the mainstays of the group’s sailing camp, where middle schoolers learn from the older students who have been specially trained to teach.
The experience gives the students a fresh perspective on their lives, community and city. “Seeing the city from the river, feeling the breeze in their hair, hearing the splashing sound of the water is a huge departure from their urban day to day,” Pockriss adds.
RELATED: The America’s Cup Endeavour Program
Caring for the boats they sail empowers the students. They work together to inspect the hulls, check for rigging issues, pull them up onto the floating docks, and dry and store the sails. Teamwork keeps a boat up in the water and, when it turns over, helps them to get it upright again. “Knowing their peers are counting on them, they step up and do the job,” Pockriss says.
The program creates fundamental change in the trajectory of the kids’ lives. “We’re thrilled that our kids are sailing in their own local waterway on their own boats, not going off to some yacht club far away feeling they’re there just for the day. There’s pride of ownership in this program. They are the teachers; this is their waterway,” Pockriss says.
Donations to Rocking the Boat are tax deductible.
