Connecting 20,000 Kids to Boston Harbor in 2019

By Kristen Barry

Kristen Barry is Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s Youth Program Director, starting as an intern in 2015. Kristen is a graduate of Bates College, with a major in Biology and a minor in Math. In her free time, Kristen likes to swim in the harbor, hike, and coach college swimming. 


As the weather gets colder and summer becomes a distant memory, I’d like to take some time to reflect on Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s youth programs that ran for nine weeks in July and August that served more than 20,000 youth. As the Youth Program Director, I am lucky enough to plan and experience the daily environmental education that makes Save the Harbor such a fun place to work.

Since 2015 I have been involved in the youth programs, first as an intern analyzing water quality data and programming at Carson Beach, then as a Senior Harbor Educator leading a team of youth staffers as part of the Knowledge is Power science program out at Camp Harbor View. Transitioning into my full-time role, I got the chance to do outreach to new and old community groups to not only learn more about the existing programs at each of our partner sites but also share the opportunity of our free harbor island cruises with new organizations in the Boston area.

My past experience programming on our All Access Boston Harbor trips made it extremely easy to share my excitement in the program with partners. Thanks to Bay State Cruise Company, we were able to take 22 All Access Trips out to George’s and Spectacle Island three days a week from July 2^nd through August 28^th. 8,205 youth from 113 organizations joined us for at least one of these trips on which our youth staff provided free environmental education in the form of an orientation including the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup, fishing, touch tanks, intertidal treasure hunts and much more. The program provided free access to the National Park for these groups that may normally be deterred by the ferry fees.

Since 2002 Save the Harbor has been running Youth Environmental Education Programs at partner sites around the Boston Harbor, and this year was no different with our teams led by Senior Harbor Explorers, Lead Harbor Explorers, and Junior Program Assistants. Each staffer brought their own unique background knowledge to the job, and worked well not only with each other but with the staff at each site as well. They tailored their work to each specific site, for example running invasive species experiments on Long Island and teaching fisheries population dynamics lessons at Piers Park Sailing Center. They adapted to the need of the program partner ranging from East Boston to Quincy and enhanced programming to include environmental education as it related to the harbor around them. This year we were able to work with more than 12,200 youth through our wide reach at 14 sites around the Boston Harbor. The hands-on nature kept the youth engaged and allowed them to increase their understanding and interest in marine species and aquatic environments, leading them to an interest in taking care of the water around them.

We were again able to hold three Youth Beach Bash and Splashes on high tide Fridays at DCR’s Carson Beach in South Boston this year. Each time, more than 500 youth attended from community groups throughout Boston to beat the heat and take the plunge into the water at the cleanest urban beach in the country. Ready to greet the attendees were more than 600 hot dogs along with our youth staff equipped with fishing rods, sports equipment. With special appearances of kayaks from Piers Park and dragon boats with Ohana New England, these groups were allowed to experience the fun of the bash on the water.

This year we piloted an on the water expansion of our Boston Harbor Explorers program. A few times a week, we brought youth groups out fishing with Boston Fun Cruises on our Catch of the Day Fishing Trips. These trips allowed the youth to spend time out on the harbor, a change from our usual waterside programming, and familiarized them with the sustainable fisheries in Boston. We would often prepare sashimi and ceviche with the fish that they caught, showcasing a “bait to plate” model. More than 350 youth from community organizations were able to join us this summer, and we are thrilled to be continuing these trips with hopes of increasing the frequency and number of participants aboard.  

Overall, our youth programs thrived this year with more groups joining us out on All Access trips, more youth than ever before engaged through our Boston Harbor Explorers sites, including the opportunity to go out onto the water and reel in some fish. I am honored to be a part of this team, and I am so excited to take what I have learned in 2019 to improve the youth programs going forward.

Save the Harbor's free Share the Harbor Cruises are made possible with Leadership Grants from the Cronin Group, LLC, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Bay State Cruise Company, and Massachusetts Bay Lines

Save the Harbor is also grateful for Leadership Grants from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, The Boston Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Exelon Generation, and John Hancock Financial Services.

Save the Harbor is grateful for Partnership Grants from the Boston Bruins Foundation, Boston Properties – Atlantic Wharf, Boston Properties—200 Clarendon, The Daily Catch Seaport, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, Eastern Salt Company, Inc., Engie, Fan Pier - The Fallon Company, Highland Street Foundation, Hood Business Park, The HYM Investment Group, LLC, IR+M Charitable Fund, The Llewellyn Foundation, Massachusetts Port Authority, National Grid Foundation, P & G Gillette, Lawrence J. and Anne Rubenstein Charitable Foundation, William E. Schrafft & Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust, Clinton H. & Wilma T. Shattuck Charitable Trust, and Vertex.

Save the Harbor also appreciates Stewardship Grants from Anonymous, Camp Harbor View Foundation, Circle Furniture , Comcast, Copeland Family Foundation, The Cricket Foundation, Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, East Boston Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Charitable Trust, Dorr Charitable Foundation, Enbridge, Tom & Lucinda Foley, Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation, The Kershaw Foundation – Cheers for Children, George Lewis - Haven Trust, Liberty Bay Credit Union, Lovett Woodsum Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, MarineMax Russo, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Nicholson Foundation, Pabis Foundation, REI, RMR Real Estate Services, Rockland Trust Pavilion, Skanska, Abbot & Dorothy H. Stevens Foundation, TD Charitable Foundation, and Tishman Speyer.

Save the Harbor would also like to thank our Program Funders Andus Baker & Rowan Murphy Family Fund, MA Attorney General’s Office Healthy Summer and Youths Jobs Program, The Paul and Edith Babson Foundation, Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, Boston Fisheries Foundation, Andrew Calamare & Marianne Connolly, Cell Signaling Technology, Diversified Automotive, Legal Sea Foods, Miss Wallace M. Leonard Foundation, Mass Bay Credit Union, Matthew J. & Gilda F. Strazzula Foundation, UDR, and Kyle & Sara Warwick.

Save the Harbor would also like to extend our gratitude to our Supporters 3A Marine Service, The Bay State Federal Savings Charitable Foundation, Cresset Group, Massachusetts Marine Educational Trust, Polkadog Bakery, Randy Peeler & Kate Kellogg.


Special thanks as well to the hundreds of individual donors for their generosity and to our partners at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Metropolitan Beaches Commission, the Boston Centers for Youth and Families and the YMCA of Greater Boston for their support.

A Message from our Executive Director

Chris Mancini has served as Save the Harbor's Vice President of Operations & Programs since 2016. He is an experienced non-profit leader with a deep understanding of the importance of free, healthy outdoor activities and environmental education to our kids and communities. Chris takes a hands on approach to all aspects of Save the Harbor's work, and is deeply committed to the organization and its success. He is particularly proud of the work Save the Harbor does to connect our communities to the harbor, and to strengthen the leadership skills of our young staff, who are the next generation of harbor stewards. He is also an accomplished sailor, active bicycle commuter and proud husband and father.

It has been a terrific year at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, with a record number of kids and families taking part in our free programs on the Harbor, the waterfront, the islands, and the region’s public beaches. 

As this extraordinary year of growth and transition comes to a close, I’d like to take a minute to look back on what Save the Harbor accomplished with your support.

This year our Youth Environmental Education Programs brought more than 35,000 kids and their families out onto our shared harbor, islands, and beaches. Our new free Share the Harbor cruises opened these spectacular natural resources to the public and helped to meet the ever-growing demand for free programs that take advantage of our revitalized harbor and the abundance of opportunities it offers to the region’s residents and visitors. Sustainability-focused Catch of the Day fishing cruises also brought the kids we serve closer than ever to their living harbor while showing them firsthand the importance of a healthy marine ecosystem.

Our Better Beaches Program reached an important milestone when we invested our one-millionth dollar in free events and programs in Boston’s waterfront neighborhoods and the region’s beachfront communities from Nahant to Nantasket. This year these programs brought more than one million residents and visitors back to our beaches for free festivals, concerts, and programs and performances that underscore the many benefits clean water and better beaches bring to our communities.

Looking over at the feedback we received from the nearly 1000 people who took part in the Metropolitan Beaches Commission hearings we convened in nine waterfront neighborhoods and beachfront communities in 2019, one thing remains clear: The region’s residents from Nahant to Nantasket love our harbor, beaches, and islands and are passionate about improving access to these spectacular natural resources today and preserving them for generations to come.

When Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was founded in 1986, the very idea that Boston Harbor would be home to the cleanest urban beaches in the nation, our neglected waterfront would become the new heart of the city, or that the abandoned harbor islands would ever become a destination for regional residents and visitors from across the nation and around the world was a very distant dream.

Though there is still more work to be done and new challenges ahead, together we have made much of that dream come. With your sustained support, we are proud to be the region’s leading voice for clean water and continued public investment in Boston Harbor, and the Boston Harbor Connection for the more than 250,000 kids and families who have taken part in our free programs since we began them in 2002.

In the nearly 4 years I have been a part of the leadership team at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, first as Vice President and now as acting Executive Director, I have had many memorable moments that remind me of what Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has accomplished in just one generation. I’d like to share one of them with you today.

In late July, Jen Last, who became our first Youth Program Director in 2003, returned to the harbor with her husband Will and their two young daughters. Their first stop was the Boston Children’s Museum, where they caught fish and crabs with Save the Harbor’s staff, as part of our Boston Harbor Explorers program, which we run five days a week at that site.

“My early memories of Boston Harbor were of beaches that were closed at least once or twice a week.” she wrote in a text. “And my memories of the Fort Point Channel and the Seaport were of empty parking lots and brownfields where we would never think to fish.”

“Today” she continued, “thanks to all of you at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, my daughters will always have great memories of a Boston Harbor that is healthy, alive and welcoming, with beaches that are safe for swimming and beautiful harbor islands that are accessible to everyone.”

With Jen’s story in mind, I am writing to ask you to make a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or more today to support Save the Harbor’s free youth and family programs and our important and effective advocacy and policy work.

As we look to the future and the next generation of critical environmental challenges facing our capital city and the region’s coastal communities, I know that we can count on your support as we continue our work to protect and share the harbor that means so much to all of us. 

On behalf of our Board Chair Joe Newman, our Board of Directors, Bruce Berman and our staff I’d like to thank you for your past support and wish you an outstanding holiday season.

All the best,

Chris Mancini

Acting Executive Director
Save the Harbor/Save the Bay

Free Beach Events for Everyone

By Maya Smith

Maya Smith is Save the Harbor Save the Bay’s newest staff member, joining us in late October as an Outreach and Office Coordinator.
 
Maya is a graduate of Suffolk University’s Youth and Community Engagement program, with a major in Sociology and minor in Education. Although she is just joining us, she is enthusiastic and eager to make a splash at Save the Harbor!

 As a lifelong Massachusetts resident, I have unknowingly been reaping the benefits of Save the Harbor’s hard work and programming for most of my life. From making annual trips to the Revere Beach Sandcastle competition as a kid to enjoying the iconic Boston Harbor at Columbus Waterfront Park during college, Save the Harbor has positively impacted me and my community my whole life.

Although I am new to Save the Harbor, there is a strong common bond between the mission of the organization and my own personal mission: creating positive community impact. With my background working for the City of Boston Department of Youth Engagement & Employment, I am fortunate to be continuing my path of supporting organizations at the forefront of community advancement.

Human services and connecting my community members to resources has always been my passion, and I am ecstatic to be working with an organization that has dedicated decades to advocating for clean water, developing phenomenal programming, and restoring South Boston’s beaches, which are now the cleanest urban beaches in the country. I can’t wait to continue community engagement around our Better Beaches program and bringing free fun events and programming to youth and families statewide!

Since 2008, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has partnered with the Department of Conservation and Recreation to award small grants to local organizations in Nahant, Lynn, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy, and Hull to activate the region’s public beaches through free public events and programs.

Through these events, residents are given the opportunity to take advantage of their revitalized waterfront and enjoy the benefits clean water can offer their community. Save the Harbor and DCR have funded 870 total free experiences for community members of all backgrounds to participate in, investing a total of $1,097,988 of funds into our community. We are proud to announce that this year marks Save the Harbor and DCR’s one-millionth dollar of community contributions through the Better Beaches program!

    In 2019, we provided $211,320 in small grants to 37 organizations, including 8 new grantees. Grantees were able to fund free community programming in beach communities from Nahant to Nantasket. This year, community members enjoyed 233 free events through Better Beaches funding, including stunning waterside festivals, community movie nights, concerts, beach parties, fitness boot camps, sailing and kayaking sessions, speaker series, and summer-long programs!

This year, we were happy to partner with the Boston Circus Guild to bring the circus to all of Boston's youth and families. We also had the pleasure of supporting Ohana New England Dragon Boat in their success of bringing free Dragon Boat lessons to the community at large. My personal favorite, nostalgia-inducing, Better Beaches grantee will always be the Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival. Keeping Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay clean is not the only key to the success of the local ecology but is also pivotal in providing one of the most critical community resources: fun!




    To see a list of all the events and programming funded by the Better Beaches program, view our list here.

    If you, your family, or your community have enjoyed and benefited from Save the Harbor’s programming, as I have please consider taking part in the 2020 Harpoon Shamrock Splash, annual pledge and plunge fundraising event that takes place at BCYF's Curley Community Center in South Boston, on Sunday, March 8th. If you or your organization have ideas for events that connect the community to Boston Harbor or Massachusetts Bay, be on the lookout for the Better Beaches RFP, which will be released Spring 2020.


Save the Harbor would like to thank our program and policy partners and event sponsors: the Department of Conservation & Recreation, Harpoon Brewery, JetBlue, the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation, P&G Gillette, National Grid, Comcast, Beacon Capital Partners, New England Picture, Mix 104.1, Boston Centers for Youth & Families, The YMCA of Greater Boston, The Daily Catch Seaport, Baja Taco Truck, the Blue Sky Collaborative, Keezer Sportswear, the Harvey Traveler Collection, Unreal Candy, and Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods for their support.

Sharing the Harbor with 5,000 More People in 2019

By Trevor Etheridge
Trevor Etheridge is Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s Development Manager, joining our full-time staff in 2017. Trevor is a graduate of Boston University’s Marine Science Program, with a major in Marine Science and a minor in Biology. As a veteran of Save the Harbor’s youth and family programs, he is excited to continue seeing the region’s kids and their families take ownership of Boston Harbor and incorporate this spectacular resource into their daily lives.

As the Development Manager at Save the Harbor, our spring, summer and fall Share the Harbor cruises give me a great opportunity to get out of the office and onto the water to take advantage of Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands; And judging by the outpouring of responses we saw for these cruises in 2019, I’m not the only one who feels this way!

I started with Save the Harbor as an environmental policy intern in the fall of 2016 after graduating from the Marine Science undergraduate program at Boston University. After a year working with Save the Harbor as an intern, I joined the team full time, and have been with Save the Harbor ever since.

One of the most exciting changes I have seen at Save the Harbor over this time has been the introduction of our “Share the Harbor” cruises in 2018 and the continuing improvement of this program over the past year.

Over the past 17 years, Save the Harbor has run Youth Environmental Education Programs with the goal of connecting the region’s kids, teens, and their families to the harbor, beaches, and islands. A staple of this program has been our All Access Boston Harbor cruises, which we run three days a week in July and August out to Georges and Spectacle Island. Typically, only available to the region’s youth and community development groups, it quickly became a tradition to open these cruises up to the public during the last two weeks of August as youth programs began to slow down and the school year starts up. These free public cruises ended up becoming so popular, the team at Save the Harbor began developing a plan to offer free harbor, island and lighthouse cruises to the general public throughout the year. As a result, our Share the Harbor Cruises were born!

In 2018, Save the Harbor piloted our “Share the Harbor Initiative” as a way to reach a new audience of adults, friends and families of the youth who traditionally participate in our free programs, and for them to take advantage of Boston Harbor and the Boson Harbor Islands. With a $65 fare for a family of four to take a ferry out to the Harbor Islands, we fully expected our free Share the Harbor cruises to be extremely popular. That said, we were surprised and overjoyed by the overwhelming public response to this year’s free island excursions and harbor cruises.

Through this pilot we received more than 13,000 reservations for these free trips and connected residents from 143 communities to the harbor and the islands. In many cases, reservations actually exceeded the 1,000-passenger capacity of Bay State Cruise Company’s flagship Provincetown II, which is the largest passenger vessel on the harbor.  In response, we instituted a waiting list, and although we did not ultimately have to turn anyone away, we did come close on several occasions.

This year we were able to build off the success of the 2018 pilot and offer 12 Share the Harbor cruises including 3 Marine Mammal Safaris in April, 4 Lighthouse cruises to Boston Light and 3 Island Cruises to Spectacle and Georges Island in June, July, August, and September, and 2 Boston Harbor History Tours in October. Not only did these cruises bring nearly 5,500 of the region’s residents and visitors out on the harbor for a day of fun and relaxation, they also introduced many of our participants to the spectacular urban natural resources that are just a short drive or train ride from their homes.

Not everyone knows that the over three million residents from the 43 communities served by the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority continue to pay the $5 billion cost of restoring and maintaining Boston Harbor, the region’s 19 miles of public beaches managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the Boston Harbor Islands State and National Park.

However, many of Boston’s and the region’s residents can’t afford the luxury of a ferry ticket out to the islands or maintain misconceptions of the cleanliness and benefits of Boston Harbor. Our free programs work to address this inequity by providing free programs that highlight these resources and the benefits they can provide to individuals and their communities as a whole.

While the harbor, islands, and beaches are public places, it often takes opportunities like those Save the Harbor provides to inspire people to explore these spectacular urban natural resources and make them a part of their lives.

All of us at Save the Harbor are grateful to our incredible partners who help make these free cruises possible each year and hope you will come out and join us in 2020 to explore all the incredible opportunities you may be missing right in your own backyard!

Save the Harbor's free Share the Harbor Cruises are made possible with Leadership Grants from the Cronin Group, LLC, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Bay State Cruise Company, and Massachusetts Bay Lines


Save the Harbor is also grateful for Leadership Grants from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, The Boston Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Exelon Generation, and John Hancock Financial Services.


Save the Harbor is grateful for Partnership Grants from the Boston Bruins Foundation, Boston Properties – Atlantic Wharf, Boston Properties—200 Clarendon, The Daily Catch Seaport, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, Eastern Salt Company, Inc., Engie, Fan Pier - The Fallon Company, Highland Street Foundation, Hood Business Park, The HYM Investment Group, LLC, IR+M Charitable Fund, The Llewellyn Foundation, Massachusetts Port Authority, National Grid Foundation, P & G Gillette, Lawrence J. and Anne Rubenstein Charitable Foundation, William E. Schrafft & Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust, Clinton H. & Wilma T. Shattuck Charitable Trust, and Vertex.


Save the Harbor also appreciates Stewardship Grants from Anonymous, Camp Harbor View Foundation, Circle Furniture , Comcast, Copeland Family Foundation, The Cricket Foundation, Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, East Boston Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Charitable Trust, Dorr Charitable Foundation, Enbridge, Tom & Lucinda Foley, Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation, The Kershaw Foundation – Cheers for Children, George Lewis - Haven Trust, Liberty Bay Credit Union, Lovett Woodsum Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, MarineMax Russo, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Nicholson Foundation, Pabis Foundation, REI, RMR Real Estate Services, Rockland Trust Pavilion, Skanska, Abbot & Dorothy H. Stevens Foundation, TD Charitable Foundation, and Tishman Speyer.


Save the Harbor would also like to thank our Program Funders Andus Baker & Rowan Murphy Family Fund, MA Attorney General’s Office Healthy Summer and Youths Jobs Program, The Paul and Edith Babson Foundation, Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, Boston Fisheries Foundation, Andrew Calamare & Marianne Connolly, Cell Signaling Technology, Diversified Automotive, Legal Sea Foods, Miss Wallace M. Leonard Foundation, Mass Bay Credit Union, Matthew J. & Gilda F. Strazzula Foundation, UDR, and Kyle & Sara Warwick.


Save the Harbor would also like to extend our gratitude to our Supporters 3A Marine Service, The Bay State Federal Savings Charitable Foundation, Cresset Group, Massachusetts Marine Educational Trust, Polkadog Bakery, Randy Peeler & Kate Kellogg.



Special thanks as well to the hundreds of individual donors for their generosity and to our partners at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Metropolitan Beaches Commission, the Boston Centers for Youth and Families and the YMCA of Greater Boston for their support.

Art that Connects People to the Harbor

By Robyn Reed
Robyn Reed is Artist in Residence for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.  She studied painting and sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and was the Associate Dean of Admissions at SMFA for eight years.   Robyn lives in the North End of Boston and walks along the Harborwalk every day, and she is passionate about keeping the Harbor and our oceans clean.  In addition to her art practice, Robyn also loves volunteering, gardening, and hiking.

The artists that live along the Harbor are deeply moved by the sea life, the light, the salty air, the sand, and the peace and rhythms of this glorious area. We encourage community members to embrace the Harbor and stick their feet in the sand with us. Art is a global connector of people, it brings people from all backgrounds together to share in something beautiful- just like Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. In 2019, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay continued our commitment to using creative ways to bring community members to the water and connect them with the bountiful resources of the Harbor.

For the sixth consecutive year, local children, community members, and families got to enjoy the spectacular art of Andres Amador at three of our community beaches-Revere Beach, Nantasket Beach and Constitution Beach. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay brings Andres Amador, a renowned American artist, known for his large-scale organic sand drawings, out from San Francisco to take part in the Better Beaches Program every year. Working with sand rakes and teams of volunteers, Amador created mandalas in the sand between the high- and low-tide lines that last for just a few hours, connecting art and the environment in a way that is engaging and exciting.


Amador creates these large scale artworks with hopes to inspire people to "follow what brings you joy." His mission is to find satisfying outlets of creative expressive for his explorations into life while uplifting, inspiring and opening the viewer.

Amador says that simply being at the beach can be restorative, even near a major city, and we can surely agree! With bare feet in the sand, breathing the fresh ocean air, the mind is clear and all outside cares dissolve.

Using portable drones, Amador and the day’s participants were able to capture photographs of these temporary works of art from a birds-eye vantage point, giving us a unique perspective on how our hours of work along the beach had transformed these sandy shores into breathtaking scenes- at least until the next high tide.

As a fellow environmental artist, I can appreciate the visual experiences that Amador creates while reflecting on the opportunities I had to bring my environmental art project “Changing Course” to the beaches all around the Harbor for a second year.

"Changing Course" is an interactive piece made in collaboration with youth and families from events at Wollaston, Carson, Constitution, and Teanan Beaches. At each beach, participants helped paint over 50 “fish” and we talked about the urgent problem of plastics in the ocean. All of these painted bottles get incorporated into a larger sculpture, and when that is hung up, it looks like a huge school of fish.


This interactive sculpture is made up of entirely plastic drink bottles - that might have ended up in Boston Harbor - if they had not been collected from the parks, streets, and sidewalks of the Boston Waterfront and Seaport neighborhoods. The most important part of the art piece, however, is the part where I get to talk to people about how each of us can make a difference in the health and well- being of the ocean and ocean life.

The title for the piece came from the hope I have that by showing how much plastic trash is in our parks and streets, and how quickly it accumulates, we can change the course of these single-use plastic bottles. Instead of all these bottles headed towards our Harbor, we can recycle, or limit our use of these items. I am hoping that all the enthusiastic people who helped paint these “fish” at the beach this summer will never look at a water bottle on the ground the same way again and instead think about what they can do to help keep our beaches and Harbor clean!

The team at Save the Harbor and I both agree that art provides a unique opportunity to connect with Boston Harbor, the region’s public beaches, and the Boston Harbor Islands. I truly believe that by looking at environmental problems through the lenses of art and community collaboration we can come up with creative solutions to many of the problems affecting the harbor, our environment and the world today. I hope you can join us soon on Boston Harbor and I look forward to continuing to work with Save the Harbor to inspire new generations of artists and environmental stewards.

Save the Harbor would like to thank our arts and humanities program partners; Andres Amador, Robyn Reed, CBRE, Rockhill Management, Bay State Cruise Company, Massachusetts Bay Lines, Eric Dolin, Norah Dooley, David Coffin, and Tony Toledo.

Learning to Lead by Example

By Bridget Ryan

Bridget Ryan is the Lead Teacher for the summer youth programs at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.  She runs the day to day operations for our Boston Harbor Explorers and All Access Boston Harbor programs with her partner in crime, Kristen Barry (Youth Program Director).  However, during the year she teaches Social Studies and coaches the varsity soccer and softball teams at the John D. O’Bryant in Roxbury.

Way haul away, haul away Joe!

It’s hard to believe that I wrapped up my seventh summer with Save the Harbor over two months ago. It feels like only yesterday I was reading blogs, holding staff meetings, fishing, and visiting the Harbor Islands all the while, mentoring some of the best kids in Boston.

I am often asked why I work in the summer and what makes me keep coming back to Save the Harbor.  That answer is easy; it’s our staff, the kids, the beauty that is Boston Harbor. All of the above.  Every summer I have the opportunity to work with some of the most caring, influential, dedicated, and enthusiastic kids in and around Boston. This summer we hired 24 high school and seven college students to make up the majority of our staff. Being a Boston Public School teacher, I am able to hire former students and this summer did not disappoint as we had several O’Bryant students and alumni working as Junior Program Assistants and Lead Harbor Explorers.


As we embarked on our summer programs, I was extremely impressed with our returning staff.  Whether they were Junior Program Assistants (JPAs) or Lead Harbor Explorers (LHEs), they hit the harbor running in leadership roles helping teach our new staff how to run the STEAM curriculum at each site allowing for hands-on lessons that are such a core part of our programming. The nature of our summer positions promotes leadership, collaboration, enthusiasm, writing skills, and gaining familiarity with public speaking without any formal training, so last year we turned this into an official Save the Harbor program.

In its second year, our Youth Jobs and Leadership Program continued with a large focus on the team. As educators and coaches, Kristen and I know the importance of hard work and supporting your peers,  especially in a summer job where you are working with and enhancing the lives of Boston's youth. Our staff enrichment days were designed with these goals in mind and to get the staff out into the community for service projects, career presentations, and speaker series.


We first heard from Adam Scully-Power, a motivational speaker who enlightened our staff about mental toughness and that they can accomplish anything as long as they believe in themselves.  A few weeks later, our staff jumped into kayaks and paddled around Fort Point channel picking up trash with our friends from Harvey Traveler, L.L.Bean and Boston Fun Cruises. Many of our kids had never kayaked before and were hesitant to join in on the adventure.  But within minutes they were laughing and feeling comfortable on the water.  Teamwork and fun were key factors in making this enrichment day a success!

Our second enrichment day took us to the USS Constitution Museum for a bit of naval history of Boston Harbor. Staffers participated in hands-on activities and were invited back to tour the rest of the museum.  From there we went over to the U.S. Coast Guard Base in the North End to hear more about the career opportunities available to our staff.  We toured the Base and were able to explore some of their fleets.  Our staffed loved asking questions and learning more about what the Coast Guard does and why it is under the Department of Homeland Security and not the Department of Defense.  It was great to see how interested our staff was in the opportunities that they would be given at Base Boston.

Staff Day is an event that everyone looks forward to each summer.  We board The Belle and set off for a fun-filled day at Lovells Island.  Tidal pooling, exploring the island, and team bonding was the name of the game.  Our staff left the island refreshed, educated, and excited to tell their friends about a Boston Harbor Island they had visited.

I could not have asked for a better staff to work with this summer.  This squad worked hard to bring smiles to young faces all around Boston whether it was on Carson Beach splashing into the harbor, sand raking with Andres Amador, reeling in 45'' stripers, or exploring Spectacle Island.  Only 214 more days until we get to do it all over again! (Not that I'm counting...)

Sea you on the harbor,

Bridget



Save the Harbor's free Share the Harbor Cruises are made possible with Leadership Grants from the Cronin Group, LLC, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Bay State Cruise Company, and Massachusetts Bay Lines


Save the Harbor is also grateful for Leadership Grants from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, The Boston Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Exelon Generation, and John Hancock Financial Services.


Save the Harbor is grateful for Partnership Grants from the Boston Bruins Foundation, Boston Properties – Atlantic Wharf, Boston Properties—200 Clarendon, The Daily Catch Seaport, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, Eastern Salt Company, Inc., Engie, Fan Pier - The Fallon Company, Highland Street Foundation, Hood Business Park, The HYM Investment Group, LLC, IR+M Charitable Fund, The Llewellyn Foundation, Massachusetts Port Authority, National Grid Foundation, P & G Gillette, Lawrence J. and Anne Rubenstein Charitable Foundation, William E. Schrafft & Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust, Clinton H. & Wilma T. Shattuck Charitable Trust, and Vertex.


Save the Harbor also appreciates Stewardship Grants from Anonymous, Camp Harbor View Foundation, Circle Furniture , Comcast, Copeland Family Foundation, The Cricket Foundation, Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation, Davis Family Charitable Foundation, East Boston Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Charitable Trust, Dorr Charitable Foundation, Enbridge, Tom & Lucinda Foley, Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation, The Kershaw Foundation – Cheers for Children, George Lewis - Haven Trust, Liberty Bay Credit Union, Lovett Woodsum Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, MarineMax Russo, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Nicholson Foundation, Pabis Foundation, REI, RMR Real Estate Services, Rockland Trust Pavilion, Skanska, Abbot & Dorothy H. Stevens Foundation, TD Charitable Foundation, and Tishman Speyer.


Save the Harbor would also like to thank our Program Funders Andus Baker & Rowan Murphy Family Fund, MA Attorney General’s Office Healthy Summer and Youths Jobs Program, The Paul and Edith Babson Foundation, Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, Boston Fisheries Foundation, Andrew Calamare & Marianne Connolly, Cell Signaling Technology, Diversified Automotive, Legal Sea Foods, Miss Wallace M. Leonard Foundation, Mass Bay Credit Union, Matthew J. & Gilda F. Strazzula Foundation, UDR, and Kyle & Sara Warwick.


Save the Harbor would also like to extend our gratitude to our Supporters 3A Marine Service, The Bay State Federal Savings Charitable Foundation, Cresset Group, Massachusetts Marine Educational Trust, Polkadog Bakery, Randy Peeler & Kate Kellogg.


Special thanks as well to the hundreds of individual donors for their generosity and to our partners at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Metropolitan Beaches Commission, the Boston Centers for Youth and Families and the YMCA of Greater Boston for their support.

Cleaner Water and Better Beaches

By Bruce Berman

Bruce Berman has served as Director of Strategy & Communications at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay since 1990. He is a Lead Consultant to the Metropolitan Beaches Commission, and directs Save the Harbor's public policy and advocacy work.  

Bruce lives, works and plays on Boston Harbor aboard his 1987 DeFever trawler Verandah with his wife Patty Foley. He is currently a visiting scholar at Brown University, where he is working on a book about the politics of fisheries management.

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has helped lead and manage the Metropolitan Beaches Commission for the legislature since 2007. Today, the Commission is co-chaired by Rep. RoseLee Vincent of Revere and Sen Brendan Crighton of Lynn, and is charged with issuing findings and recommendations that improve the region's public beaches in Lynn, Nahant, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy and Hull.

In 2019, the Commission conducted public hearings at the State House and in 9 waterfront neighborhoods and beachfront communities from Nahant to Nantasket, to focus attention on the value of these beaches to the nearly two million regional residents who live within a short drive or ride to the coast. Nearly 1,000 people took part in a hearing or completed an online survey.

You can see what participants had to say about their favorite beach here.


While most of the region's public beaches have improved substantially since the Commission's first report in 2008,  traffic jams and beach parking have become critical concerns on beaches that were all but abandoned just 20 years ago, along with unexplained marine mammal mortality events, increased nuisance algae blooms related to rising ocean temperatures, and beach erosion and damage to coastal infrastructure cause by increasingly frequent and severe storm events .

In the winter of 2020, Save the Harbor will produce a report on the Metropolitan Beaches Commissions findings and recommendations, which we will release at a public event in the spring, to keep these beaches “top of mind” as we advocate for full funding for the Metropolitan Beaches line in the FY2021 budget.

Though water quality on area beaches has improved significantly in recent years, some beaches continue to lag behind, while beach flagging and posting protocols, which rely on yesterday’s test results for today’s posting, continue to be misleading.

Though the flags and postings are fairly accurate on very clean beaches (like those in South Boston) or very dirty beaches (like King’s or Tenean) they are often wrong on beaches that are doing fairly well, like Constitution Beach in East Boston, Malibu Beach in Dorchester, and Wollaston Beach in Quincy.

To complicate matters, this year DPH has made an unannounced change to their posting protocols, without any input from stakeholders, which appears to have made the flagging and postings even less accurate than before, which we are working to resolve.

For example, this summer Constitution Beach, Wollaston Beach, and Malibu Beach were incorrectly flagged when the water was safe to swim 16 times in June and July - including both the 4th and 5th of July during a heat wave on a holiday weekend.

To help clarify the situation, in 2020 Save the Harbor/Save the Bay will convene our Beaches Science Advisory Committee to review the data and make recommendations to improve the flagging protocol and protect the public's health and their right to swim when the water is safe.

The metropolitan region's 13 public beaches are important environmental, economic, recreational and civic assets that belong to all the residents of the Commonwealth. We look forward to working with all of you in 2020 as we seek to move these beaches from good to great, and continue to protect both the public's health and their right to enjoy clean water on their beach.

You can see learn more about water quality on your favorite urban beach at https://savetheharbor.org/publications/reportcard/

Save the Harbor would like to thank our program and policy partners and event sponsors: the Department of Conservation & Recreation, Harpoon Brewery, JetBlue, the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation, P&G Gillette, National Grid, Comcast, Beacon Capital Partners, New England Picture, Mix 104.1, Boston Centers for Youth & Families, The YMCA of Greater Boston, The Daily Catch Seaport, Baja Taco Truck, the Blue Sky Collaborative, Keezer Sportswear, the Harvey Traveler Collection, Unreal Candy, and Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods for their support.