Boston Family Boat Building
We have three exciting new initiatives to announce.
We are using existing staff time and collaboration with public agencies to make these happen. They add significantly to our year round effort to offer experiences that bring our students and their families together to learn and work toward success in school and life.
 
1. In September we delivered 2 boats to Camp Becket in Becket, MA.
Camp Becket Launching 9-2011
Our 5th graders spend 4 days camping and doing environmental studies at the camp each fall. Next September we will deliver 2 more boats and the camp will develop water based programming to add to the environmental studies the students have done in the past.

2. All 5th graders will be having swimming lessons starting in January. Every student will visit the Flaherty Pool ten times during their scheduled gym class. We created this initiative as another effort to help our kids feel safe during water based experiences. It will also allow them to use their own boats next summer to explore Jamaica Pond.  We will be providing the transportation and any logistical support needed to make it happen.
3. Starting in April, 2012, when boats built by previous years' students are put into Jamaica Pond, all the 5th graders will be practicing rowing on Saturday mornings. We are being  sponsored by the Boston Public Health Commission for this new initiative. The students rowing practices will culminate in a day of racing on launch day in mid June.
This is another way of developing the program to support family participation. With swimming certification and confidence in their rowing ability students will be able to enjoy the boats they have built all summer long. They get free use their boats because we donate them to the Jamaica Pond rental program.

All in all we think these new initiatives add a significant number of experiences for our students that will help them understand that there are practical uses for the academic work they do in the classroom. That understanding will further reinforce their engagement in academic work and support them to succeed in our school and beyond in their future education.   
Contact

 

John Rowse, Executive Director, Boston Family Boat Building, 617-595-8557
  
Support our Work
  
Donate right now through Network for Good
  
We have several of the student built skiffs for sale. See below. 
  
Donate your boat through our partnership with Block Island Maritime Funding.
  
Boston Family Boat Building brings critical academic subjects and skills -- math, science, social studies, spatial thinking, reading and writing -- to life with experiential learning opportunities for school children. It is a unique program serving Boston Public Schools elementary school children that draws on the outstanding natural features of Boston and its rich history. Now in its 6th year, the program works with 4th and 5th graders to learn navigation skills in the Harbor, construct a seaworthy 10-foot wooden rowing vessel and learn about earlier Bostonians, particularly African Americans, who worked in the maritime trades. Check out all our programs to bring exciting experiential learning opportunities to students of the
Boston Public Schools at

Boston Family Boat Building is supported by

volunteers, individual donors and funding from:
The Jane B. Cook 1983 Charitable Trust, CHT Foundation,
Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Fund, Amelia Peabody Foundation,
Cabot Family Charitable Trust, George A Ramlose Foundation,

David Greenewalt Charitable Trust, Robbins-de Beaumont Foundation,
Wellington Management Foundation, Schrafft Charitable Trust and
Block Island Maritime Funding
The 2010 trip to the Small Reach Regatta was supported by the 
Downeast Chapter of The Small Craft Association
 

BFB Logo vertical small

BOATS FOR SALE
to support our work with kids
in the Boston Public Schools
 
Some of the boats built by students in past years are pictured above. They are for sale for $1,500 each. We have 15. They are 10ft, carvel planked in Maine cedar, framed in white oak from Orange, MA and have a fir plywood bottom. All materials are sourced from sustainably managed forests by certified loggers and milled in FSC certified facilities.

Contact: 

 John Rowse
Boston Family Boat Building

133 Paul Gore Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130