Rocking the Boat is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

The Bronx, New York City The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York ...

. They run educational programs for high school students, teaching boat building, environmental science, and sailing, with the goal of empowering economically disadvantaged young people in the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

. An annual fund-raising event features rowing around

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

History and activities

Rocking the Boat was founded in 1996 by Adam Green, and is a non-profit organization in the South Bronx which runs

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

-based educational programs for local high school students. They are most well known for

boatbuilding Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires. Construction materials and methods Wood W ...

, but curricula also include

environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...

and

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cour ...

. Their motto is, "Kids don’t just build boats, boats build kids". Originally located in a

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

junior high school, the group's first project was to build an wooden

dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

, with the school's indoor swimming pool serving as a testing tank. The organization is currently located in a converted warehouse on Edgewater Road in the Hunts Point section of

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, adjacent to Hunts Point Riverside Park on the

Bronx River The Bronx River (), approximately long, flows through southeast New York in the United States and drains an area of . It is named after colonial settler Jonas Bronck. Besides the Hutchinson River, the Bronx River is the only fresh water river i ...

. As part of their environmental programs, Rocking the Boat does water quality testing in the Bronx River, measuring pathogen levels. In 2002, Rocking the Boat worked with New York City Parks and The Bronx River Alliance to plant ''

Spartina alterniflora ''Sporobolus alterniflorus'', or synonymously known as ''Spartina alterniflora'', the smooth cordgrass, saltmarsh cordgrass, or salt-water cordgrass, is a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt ...

'' (salt-marsh grass) along the shore of the Bronx River.

Students

Experimental oyster reef creation off Soundview Park in the Bronx

Rocking the Boat draws students mostly from the surrounding Hunts Point neighborhood, in the lowest income congressional district in the country. Green told the ''Daily News'', "Rocking the Boat empowers young people challenged by severe economic, educational and social conditions to develop the self-confidence to set ambitious goals and gain the skills necessary to achieve". , approximately 850 students had graduated the organization's educational programs.

Rocking Manhattan

Rocking the Boat runs an annual fundraising event, known as Rocking Manhattan, in which participants

row Row or ROW may refer to: Exercise *Rowing, or a form of aquatic movement using oars *Row (weight-lifting), a form of weight-lifting exercise Math *Row vector, a 1 × ''n'' matrix in linear algebra. *Row (database), a single, implicitly structured ...

wooden Whitehall rowing gigs around the island of Manhattan. The , 8-hour course starts at

Pier 40 Pier 40 (officially known as Pier 40 at Hudson River Park) is a parking garage, sports facility, and former marine terminal at the west end of Houston Street in Manhattan, New York, within Hudson River Park. It is home to the New York Knight ...

on West Houston Street, circumnavigating the island via the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

, the

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyte ...

, and the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. Recent events have included 12 boats and over 100 rowers.

References

{{Reflist Non-profit organizations based in the Bronx 1996 establishments in New York City Sailing in New York City Youth empowerment organizations Circumnavigations of Manhattan Environmental organizations based in New York City