Three hundred miles of coastline hug the edge of southern Connecticut, meandering from Captain Harbor in the south towards Fishers Island Sound and Stonington Harbor in the north.
Enabling access to this water is a top priority of the Stamford-based Young Mariners Foundation.
In a state with an increasingly widening achievement gap, non-profit organizations like the Young Mariners Foundation have been dedicating themselves to developing programs to bolster academic and life skills achievement. Young Mariners uses sailing as a platform to engage students.
The foundation, which operates today out of the city-owned Southfield Park, was founded in 1997 as a sailing program for low-income children living in Stamford.
“The idea was to give kids who didn’t have an opportunity to access the waterfront a chance to sail,” said Program Director Peter Gunn.
The program was initially based out of Stamford Yacht Club, but then evolved into a full after school program combining time in the classroom and time on the water.
“We started an after school program to help kids learn to swim, learn about water safety and navigation, get a sense of what a boat’s all about,” said Gunn. “It has morphed into an education program that uses sailing as a hands-on way for experiential learning.”
Young Mariners currently partners with five Stamford public schools and three community centers, working with 20 students at each location. The program has both yearlong and summer components, implementing a curriculum based on Connecticut State science, math, and social studies standards.
Students begin in the year-round program, where activities include learning how to swim, acquiring First Aid and safety training, and studying the ecology of Long Island Sound. They then have the opportunity to continue in the Blue Water Bound, a five-week summer program in July. The program has also served as a model for the Greenwich Young Mariners Foundation, organized last year with a similar vision to make sailing and waterfront learning accessible to young students.
“Kids who went through our after school program can apply and come learn to sail – they spend half a day on the water, half a day in the classroom focusing on math, science, and social studies,” said Gunn, who is a retired schoolteacher.
The program instructs in a variety of boats, all of which are acquired through donations.
“Kids learn in Optis, and then graduate to Pixels and Lasers. They learn about racing and they do intramural racing amongst themselves,” said Development Director Priscilla Young.
The learning process is one that will resound with anyone who has ever learned to sail.
“By starting with Optis – in a boat by themselves – they’ve really got to figure things out. They have to absorb information in the morning and then do it in the afternoon. It’s a very powerful process,” said Gunn.
The sailing instruction in and of itself is a key innovation of the program. Young Mariners employs certified teachers from Connecticut public schools as sailing and content instructors. Many had little sailing experience prior to working with the program, but quickly progressed through working with Gunn and then taking the US Sailing Level 1 Certification course.
“Who our instructors are is really what makes our program extremely unique. These people are very experienced and capable teachers and know how to reach kids who sometimes struggle with learning,” said Young.
“We felt that it is as important to have someone who knows how to reach children with learning as it was to have somebody who knows how to sail.”
Six of the seven instructors are teachers in the Stamford school system and, as a result, are already familiar with students. Young says this helps in building relationships and confidence within the program.
Students who stick with the program over time are armed with skill sets that can serve them in a variety of settings. Some become interns and junior instructors with the Young Mariners, while others take their skills elsewhere.
Gunn says that there are a couple of students who compete on the high school sailing team, an agglomeration of Stamford schools practicing out of Stamford Yacht Club, and that several more are considering joining in the fall.
“There are a lot of options: kids can join Sea Cadets or Sea Scouts, and can go get future jobs at yacht clubs, community centers, at the beach as a lifeguard, et cetera,” said Gunn.
“And when they apply for college, because they have worked with us for five or six years and have taken a lot of certification, they become very appealing to schools,” he added.
Both Young and Gunn agree that the program has been very effective in a holistic way.
“These kids start to do much better in school and gain a lot of confidence. Going out on a boat and managing that process gives you a sense of mastery through problem solving and taking care of stuff,” said Gunn.
“In a sense, these kids are learning to learn,” he said.
Photos courtesy of Peter Gunn and The Young Mariners Foundation
