Participants in all three of Rocking the Boat’s tracks—Boatbuilding, Sailing, and Environmental Science—learn how to row during their time in this award winning Youth Development program.  They love rowing in the traditional wooden boats they or their peers have built, and while they are always welcome to come back and take a boat out on the Bronx River, few take the initiative to do so.  In 2015, the organization piloted an Alumni Rowing Team, the only team of its kind in the South Bronx, to create an organized way for program grads to keep rowing and remain engaged with Rocking the Boat.  It was a big hit! 

Support from the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge will fund a second year of this fun, exercise-based initiative and allow 16 alumni to participate in 24-30 practices as well as six to eight local and regional races.  Practices lasting three hours take place in handmade wooden boats on the Bronx River at Hunts Point Riverside Park (adjacent to Rocking the Boat) and races are based as close as Manhattan and as distant as Boston and Maine.  The main event they train for throughout the summer is Rocking the Boat’s own fall fundraiser, Rocking Manhattan, taking place this year on September 17—during the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge!  Rowers exhibit both nautical and leadership skills as they serve as coxswains, or drivers, of the 26-foot long Whitehall gigs that event registrants row nearly 30 miles over the course of nine hours around the entire island of Manhattan.  The coach of Rocking the Boat’s Alumni Rowing Team is Tizoc Gomez, formerly the Community Coordinator and Marine Technology Consultant at New York Harbor School.  With over nine years of experience planning and leading rowing, sailing, and backpacking trips for students, Tizoc ably and enthusiastically leads every practice session and trips.