Rocking the Boat is an after school and summer program empowering young people from the South Bronx to develop self-confidence, 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.

Rocking the Boat is committed to helping its participants:

• Stay in high school until they graduate or receive an equivalency diploma

• Enroll in college or trade school and be prepared academically and emotionally to succeed there

• Develop technical skills such as sailing, boat handling, navigating, chart reading, carpentry, sample collection and testing, scientific observation, and recording data, all of which reinforce STEM concepts and put them into a practical context

• Develop soft skills such as leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving, and critical thinking

Rocking the Boat’s South Bronx neighborhood, Hunts Point, is in the poorest congressional district in the nation. Students here need comprehensive and sustained services to contend with the disadvantage of under-resourced schools, and the too frequent lack of adequate family support.

Despite having become synonymous with urban decay and pollution, the Bronx boasts some outstanding natural features including the oldest forest and the only true river in New York City. These spaces are home to a wide variety of trees, plants, fish, land animals, and birds.

Rocking the Boat kept rocking, virtually, at the onset of the pandemic and on through the summer. We know that the current circumstances could change at any moment, but at the same time we are excited to have resumed in-person youth development programming as of September 21 and have confidence that our hands-on boatbuilding, environmental science, and sailing experiences are exactly what our participants need right now.

We are lucky that building, rowing, and sailing boats all takes place in spaces—a 2,500 square foot shop with 15' foot ceilings and outdoors on the Bronx River—that offer plenty of space to spread out and fresh air to breathe. Comprehensive distancing and sanitizing procedures are in place and will be strictly enforced to keep everyone safe.

Rocking the Boat's COVID-19 Health and Safety Protocols were developed following Federal and state guidelines and endorsed by New York City Health and Hospital Corporation's lead epidemiologist and Rocking the Boat's Board of Directors.

Rocking the Boat is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that relies on your support to keep our programs running. Please consider making a donation below.

learn more at

rockingtheboat.org