Windsurfing 51

Letter from the Executive Director
Spring 2009

We continue to devote time and thought to our strategic plan - the process is on-going. With clearly defined goals and initiatives, we continue to out perform our expectations each year.

I'm not sure why, but the process makes me chuckle. Strategic planning can be folly when a key goal for all of our programs is to meet the needs of any child or adult who comes to us.

No matter how well we plan, children and adults living with disabilities come to us with new needs which are so compelling; so we adapt our planning and create programming. While remaining responsible to our many supporters and loyal athletes, we can rarely say "no" to those in need near us. This is how our program, "City Street" became one of our most prominent efforts. Initially, we worked with a few youth living with disabilities from Boston neighborhoods six summers ago. We discovered that they were the tip of a proverbial iceberg of children and youth in Boston who could greatly benefit from our water sports programs and conditioning/function training throughout the year. Now hundreds of greater Boston children and youth work with us year round both on the water and in their schools. In fact, we just conducted our second successful annual City Street Soccer Clinic with Kristine Lilly and the Boston Breakers at Harvard Stadium with thanks to Harvard Athletics.

Most recently a need we've all known has caused us to make another addition to our programming. This summer, we're creating a six week program for veterans wounded in recent conflicts. The program, actually, will not be restricted and we won't turn away veterans from other eras, but the stories of newly "Wounded Warriors" have moved us.

We will teach rowing and Hawaiian Outrigger Canoeing at Community Rowing in Watertown to supplement their on-going adaptive rowing program. We'll implement adaptations we've already created for rowing and paddling, and hope to refine new technologies with the help of our collaborators at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston. Our high-challenge water sports program--adaptive windsurfing, rowing and kayaking, as example--now in its tenth year is at three sites in Massachusetts: Boston's Charles River from the Pier at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital; Canton's Reservoir Pond at the Massachusetts Hospital School and Nantucket's Jetties' Beach. I'm confident that this new program will be as successful as our ongoing partnerships with Spaulding, The Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism, Perkins School for the Blind, Mass. Hospital School Summer Camp, Nantucket Community Sailing and others.

I'm so grateful that we have the freedom and the support to meet these needs and effect great change in these times. We are hopeful for the future with our athletes, our new friends, our supporters and certainly for the growth of existing and new programs as we continue to plan "strategically" for many hopeful days ahead.