Adam Green: Using Boats to Build Kids

Using Boats to Build Kids

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Junior year, Adam Green '95 took a semester off to work for the Hudson River sloop Clearwater and discovered that he was "a horrible sailor, but loved to teach." That's where he met Paul Pennoyer, a junior high school science teacher, who asked Green to come and work with him on a boat building project with his students at the East Harlem Maritime School. Over the course of the year, using salvaged wood, they completed an eight-foot dinghy, christened it the Dolphin, and launched it in the pool in the school basement. Lo and behold, it floated!

After Green graduated from Vassar, Pennoyer recommended him for a similar project with high school students under the auspices of Hostos Community College. Over the course of seven months, after school and on weekends, Green and his students built a 14-foot Whitehall, a replica of a traditional 19th-century New York harbor boat, from scratch. In the process the students learned to loft, lapstrake, and spile a plank. They learned geometry, physics, teamwork, and pride. Of course, to liberate the boat, they had to take down a wall, but so what? They launched it amid great fanfare at the Harlem River Bronxfest that summer. Green arranged to bring in performers and musicians representing all different ages and cultures, including traditional Latino musicians, a rap and R&B group, and folk singer Pete Seeger. C.N.N. and the New York Times covered the story. It was a huge success.

The only problem was figuring out how to keep it going. Over the next two years, Green searched for a sponsor and in 1998 hooked up with New Settlement Apartments, which manages almost a thousand apartments in the South Bronx and also provides social services, including programs for young people. New Settlement offered him a basement workshop and a salary. That first year of operation, Green's program received five grants, including one from the Echoing Green Foundation.

Two years later, Rocking the Boat moved out of the basement to a storefront on 174th Street, which gave the organization much greater visibility and curb appeal, both to participants and donors. Today, Rocking the Boat is an independent, sustainable not-for-profit, with four full-time and seven part-time staff, serving over 100 youth each year, with free programs in boat-building and environmental science. Who's eligible? Anyone of high school age (although you don't have to be in school to be eligible) who fills out an application and talks to Adam.

Rockingtheboat.org explains it best: "The purpose of the boat-building program is not for kids to build boats, but for boats to build kids. The boat builders apply math, carpentry, and organizational skills, practice problem solving and teamwork, learning skills applicable to the working world—Very few aspects of modern culture allow people to be part of such a concrete and practical process."

More: http://www.aavc.vassar.edu/vq/summer2000/adamgreen.html