“You can do it!” is a Rocking the Boat refrain of reassurance stretching back over 26 years of challenging young people to set ambitious goals for themselves and offering them the support to achieve them. What did participants strive for in 2024?

• Every senior who graduated from high school enrolled in college or a certificate program, joining 90% of their predecessors who completed or are on track to complete their degrees within six years.
  
  
• Boatbuilders completed the restoration of a 126-year-old wooden rowboat hailing from the Stockbridge Bowl, a small lake in the Berkshires. They also took on a complex feat of naval drafting in creating a new set of lofting boards for Rocking the Boat’s most popular vessel, the classic 14-foot Whitehall.
  
  
• Environmental participants tackled multiple projects on both land and water. They captured images of elusive urban coyotes in local Bronx parks; raised seaweed from seedlings to mature plants at the mouth of the Bronx River; and soothed bees who lost their queen on two rooftop hives.
  
  
• Fourteen of our Sailors took and passed grueling two-day US Sailing Level 1 and 2 certification exams, including the first two ever to do so before their senior year. Others spent weeks at sea on a series of tall ship sailing adventures—whale watching and conducting field studies for 10 days off the coast of Massachusetts and sailing a three-masted topsail schooner for seven days from Boston to Maine. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, meeting and racing on the Bronx River with their heroine, Cole Brauer, fresh off her solo round-the-world race, came naturally.
  

“We did it!” was a celebratory lyric sung twice at Rocking the Boat this year. The first time was the opening of Sail Central Park, the concession at the famed Manhattan boat pond with the Gilded Age name, Conservatory Water. More than 7,000 tourists and locals—not to mention several media outlets—embraced the return of the venue after four shuttered years, and our all-Rocking the Boat-alumni staff hugged them right back.

The second occasion was the triumphant launch of Rocking the Boat’s first-ever programmatic replication in San Francisco! I wish I could do justice to the effusive reception our arrival has received in California. The community has been turning out to test their woodworking skills in our new shop and community rowing days with an enthusiasm that has us fired up to exceed expectations when the afterschool Boatbuilding program rolls out in the spring. 

Thriving at three locations is only possible with support from generous friends like you. Thank you for your past support and please renew your gift to Rocking the Boat and help us “get it done!”