Raise Your Spirits Program Offers
Tall Ship Adventure to Underserved Youth
DANA POINT, CA, March 6, 2008 - The Ocean Institute is pleased to join with Bank of America to offer its "Raising Your Spirits on the Spirit" program to 540 underserved Orange County students. The program provides these students with the opportunity to sail onboard the Institute’s tall ship Spirit of Dana Point, enjoying a six-hour voyage and receiving an introduction to the basics of sailing.
"We're delighted at the generosity of Bank of America for enabling us to provide a unique tall ship experience to young people who have not had the opportunity to enjoy sailing our oceans," commented Dan Stetson, President of the Ocean Institute. "These programs introduce young people new sailing skills, but more importantly, teach them the value of teamwork and an appreciation of our beautiful beaches and oceans."
Sharon Battle, Senior Vice President, Market Development Manager, remarked, "Bank of America is pleased to support the Ocean Institute's efforts to introduce underserved young people to tall ship sailing, maritime history and our oceans. It's exciting to see these teens experience the sea for the first time and learn teamwork, all the while working towards a brighter future."
The students will be coming in February and March from schools in Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Garden Grove, Laguna Hills, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Santa Ana.
Their experience will include three 50-minute pre-trip visits where Ocean Institute instructors can orient students, review logistics, demonstrate teamwork and self-reliance activities, and begin training for watch details. Brent Rudmann, Maritime Program Director, noted that students will be taking character lessons learned from maritime literature such as Jack London's Seeds of McCoy and Melville’s Moby Dick, and will put them to use aboard an actual tall ship. They will figure out by themselves how to set 10,000 pounds of sail and work the ship through sailing maneuvers, all while leaning the importance of self-reliance and leadership.
Rudmann explained, "A complex vessel like the Spirit of Dana Point requires proper leadership, cooperation and human muscle, without which it will never leave the dock. In combining classroom literature and a real at-sea experience, we strive to make the character lessons attempted in the classroom become a physical reality."
For twenty-six years, the Institute’s award-winning programs onboard the brig Pilgrim and topsail schooner Spirit of Dana Point have been taking students back in time to relive the life of a 19th century sailor. Each year, over 16,000 4th - 12th grade students from throughout the western United States participate in the Ocean Institute’s maritime history programs.
The Ocean Institute is committed to serving at-risk and underserved students and has a policy that no student ever be denied access on the basis of ability to pay. As a result, the Ocean Institute has an active scholarship program that regularly hosts students from Boys & Girls Clubs, ACCESS programs of the Orange County Department of Education (at-risk students), numerous Title I schools (federal free lunch entitled), and Orangewood and Olive Crest (foster care facilities).
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