Emily Trower-Young works side by side with Boatbuilding students at Rocking the Boat’s shop

In April, MVC celebrates Earth Day by featuring the nonprofit, Rocking the Boat, which is a traditional wooden boatbuilding and environmental education program based out of the southwest Bronx

Rocking the Boat uses traditional wooden boatbuilding and on-water education to allow high school age to youth develop into empowered and responsible adults.  Through these mediums, Rocking the Boat empowers South Bronx students to deal with everyday realities that are often not addressed at home or in school.  Four levels of community and youth development programs operate during the fall and spring academic semesters and over the summer.  Together, the programs directly serve over 2,000 students and community members drawn from a range of New York City public high schools and neighborhoods, the majority being in the South Bronx.  Rocking the Boat teaches, challenges, nurtures, and motivates, providing the tools to transition into the next phase of life.  Kids don’t just build boats at Rocking the Boat, boats build kids.

Volunteers at Rocking the Boat typically work along with students in the after school boatbuilding program or on Saturdays as part of the Community Rowing Program.  Both of these opportunities provide opportunities for volunteers to work hands-on with Rocking the boat students and community members.  Rocking the Boat also has volunteer opportunities in fundraising, event organizing, and administrative duties.  Along with individual volunteer opportunities, Rocking the Boat works with groups of up to 10 volunteers paired one-on-one with students in full-day boat repair and restoration projects.  Along with accomplishing a great deal of needed work (sanding, varnishing, oar making), these volunteer days provided an amazing opportunity for Rocking the Boat youth to be the experts and train a group of adults.  Volunteer help is also regularly employed at community events, such as a mid-semester open house and an end-of-semester launch celebration.  For more information, please visit http://www.volunteernyc.org/org/14329003.html

Emily has been a weekly volunteer at the Rocking the Boat shop for nearly a year.  One of Emily’s dreams is to become a professional boatbuilder.  As an attendee of the renowned traditional wooden boatbuilding school in Maine, the Rockland Apprenticeshop, she is a highly skilled woodworker; and as a devoted and expert baker, she faithfully brings a big batch of cookies to the shop every week, endearing her to everybody even more.  According to Rocking the Boat’s Boatbuilding Program Director, “It is great to have a woman in the shop who is smart, crafty, and opinionated—she especially helps raise the bar for any girls in the class.  She is the one volunteer I've had who could step in and teach the class without me.”

Emily says she has never known a place like Rocking the Boat.  She calls it “a place full of laughter and genuine hope for the future, where everyone is accepted for who they are, and where our differences are celebrated and explored.”  While making oarlock blocks once with a female student, the girl turned to Emily and asked if she thought she might one day be able to go to the college Emily attended.  She was thrilled.  Not only did Emily have the opportunity to share her woodworking knowledge with the student, she also had a unique chance to encourage her towards a greater goal than high school for her future.  They talked as they worked and by the time class was over, and their oarlock blocks finished, she felt that she had given this special young woman the glimmer of a new outlook on her life.  Emily takes great pride and pleasure that, as a Rocking the Boat volunteer, she is able to help young women gain confidence and knowledge.  “The female students here are bright, outspoken, and ready to take on a world that may not always accept them as such,“ she says. “But for four hours a day at Rocking the Boat, I have the chance to be the change I wish to see in the world.”

Congratulations to Emily and Rocking the Boat for being one of the Best People in NYC!