BoatUS News: BoatUS Foundation Announces Grant Winners

After 9000 votes, the public has spoken. The competitive BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water's 2013 Grants Program has announced that four non-profit groups will receive $10,000 each to help educate boaters this year. The winning grants were selected by the public and the funds will go to a variety of projects, from creating an interactive on-the-water STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum to helping make boat shows greener. In 25 years, the Foundation has awarded over $1.1 million to organizations that have developed creative projects to promote safe and clean boating on their local waterways. Grant funds come from donations by the half-million members of Boat Owners Association of The United States.

"These four winners are using different ways to educate and engage the public," said Foundation Outreach Manager Alanna Keating. "When you feel you are on the boat with scientists, or find it easy to recycle while walking the docks of a boat show, you're learning to be a part of the solution."

Photo Caption: Past BoatUS Foundation Grant winners have included
creative billboards to help educate boaters.

The four grantees selected to receive $10,000 are:

Access Monterey Peninsula, Monterey, CA: The group will create safe and clean boating segments for the TV program, "Your Sanctuary." This includes a stand-alone 30-minute episode as well as shorter segments that will be included into future episodes that will be distributed to their network of over 100 TV stations across the country, through YouTube and on social media sites.

Annapolis Green, Annapolis, MD: Funding will be used for the group's Red Right Recycle program which will work to increase recycling and clean boating awareness at the Annapolis sailboat and powerboat shows. Additionally, they will create the Green Boating Event Toolkit to help other organizations with waterside and in-water events in other locations to replicate the effort.

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, Granville, VT: A grant for the nationwide "Mission: Atlantic" project will provide the public an opportunity to "be on" the boat with Rozalia project through access to their STEM curriculum. Also included is guidance on how to run cleanups as well as daily education updates from Rozalia Project, live stream chats with the crew and guest scientists, and access to educational contests including cleanup events and creating public service announcements.

US Coast Guard Auxiliary First District Northern Region, Weymouth, MA: To create public service announcements for the "Wear It" New England campaign using boating leaders as spokespersons and setting good examples of life jacket wear. The announcements will be available on social media as well as all Flotillas in the District and local TV stations.

Applications for 2014 Grant program will be available again this fall at www.BoatUS.com/Foundation.

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