Young Mariners Foundation Earns National Award for Its After-School Programs

From Young Mariners Foundation of Stamford.

The Young Mariners Foundation of Stamford has received the prestigious award for Creative Innovations in Programming from US Sailing, the national organization for sailing.

The award recognizes the outstanding contributions of the Young Mariners Foundation to further sailing education and public access to the water. US Sailing said that the award “is to highlight those that think outside the box and through their ingenuity have further connected their organization to the community.”

Among the ways the Young Mariners Foundation does this is by providing an after-school enrichment program to increase academic and life skills achievement through sailing. The foundation works with seven Stamford public schools and the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich on an after-school academic enrichment program for more than 150 underserved elementary and middle school students.

Students in the program, who pass an advanced swimming test by the end of the school year, are eligible to become campers at either the five-week Blue Water Bound Summer Sailing and Academic Enrichment Camp at Boccuzzi Park in Stamford or the three-week Greenwich Young Mariners Sailing Program at Greenwich Community Sailing in partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich.

“The Young Mariners Foundation utilizes sailing as a learning platform to teach math, science, social studies, life skills and work force development through academic enrichment, citizenship, responsibility, teamwork and leadership,” explained Marilyn Shapiro, the foundation’s executive director. “Our goal is to help children Learn, Achieve and Succeed.”

The award will be presented to the Young Mariners Foundation on Jan. 22 in New Orleans at the National Sailing Programs Symposium (http://nsps.ussailing.org/home/).

The Young Mariners Foundation is planning a gala celebration of its commitment to youth on April 16 at the Stamford Yacht Club, details to be released shortly.