Rocking the Boat has continually received requests from people eager to see something like it come to their own communities. And as proud as we are that numerous small organizations around the country credit Rocking the Boat as their founding inspiration, there hasn’t been an actual replication…until now.

On October 19, Rocking the Boat San Francisco opened its doors with sweeping views of the Bay in the gorgeous new, $200 million India Basin Waterfront Park in Bayview-Hunters Point, a community sharing defining similarities—beyond its name!—with Hunts Point in the Bronx. The organization is thrilled at the prospect of mirroring out West what has been happening so successfully in New York since 1998: supporting students from under-resourced communities to navigate high school and transition to adulthood, increasing their access to the rich natural resources immediately in front of them, and, more broadly, combatting entrenched environmental and social injustices.

At the top of the long list of individuals who breathed life into Rocking the Boat San Francisco are General Manager Phil Ginsburg and Program Manager Josh Silver of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. A special shout out goes to Mickey Fearn, a mutual friend and Trust for Public Land Board Member, who suggested Phil reach out to Adam Green. Phil’s pitch to Adam in May, 2023: come to California and help me fulfill the community’s desire to establish a program that celebrates the ship building history of the site, engages young people in youth development and job readiness opportunities, and introduces them to their local natural water resources. Just 18 short months later, that program is up and running. Dozens of community members are stopping in these first few weeks to help Program Manager Alana McGillis and her Program Assistants (graduates of the boatbuilding program she formerly directed) build work benches, shape oars, and restore one of three Whitehall rowing boats shipped cross country from the Bronx that will form the core of the rowing fleet. And on four Sundays the public has been invited to go rowing on San Francisco Bay. Come spring, Chief Program Officer Chris Childers, a veteran of the sailing education world, will be taking the helm and the inaugural class of boatbuilders will be starting construction of their own Whitehall.

Along with San Francisco Recreation and Park, Rocking the Boat’s primary community partner is the highly respected 3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic, which will support participants socially, emotionally, and academically and help recruit students and families. Further, a Community Advisory Committee made up of local civic and environmental leaders is providing crucial inside perspective that will shape both strategic direction and operational planning. Supporters include the San Francisco Department of Children Youth & Their Families, the San Francisco Foundation, and Ambos Mundos.