Board Highlight: Jason Sandoval

Save the Harbor board member Jason Sandoval lives in the small city of Melrose, Massachusetts with his wife and two kids. He spends most of his free time with his family, attending local events, helping out at his children’s school and taking day trips to nearby cities. But at his core, he loves a great party. “I love to plan a good time for people,” he said. 

With a party planner personality, it's no surprise Sandoval found himself working in the live entertainment industry. Sandoval is currently General Manager at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, and has served as General Manager at four different venues.

His love for music and event planning drives his work. "The underlying goal is to provide a great experience for people to connect with music,” Sandoval said.

Prior to the Xfinity Center, Sandoval worked as General Manager at the Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston’s Seaport, where Save the Harbor’s All Access Boston Harbor program kicks off each week in the summer. His predecessor, James Jensen, had been on Save the Harbor’s Board of Directors and initially provided access to the Leader Bank Pavilion for Save the Harbor’s youth programs. 

“The venue is open, accessible, and at a great location for the youth program to meet up with a wonderful backdrop of the harbor,” Sandoval said. “I was happy to toe the line.”

The ability to use such a landmark as the Leader Bank Pavilion is incredibly valuable to our youth programs, as hundreds of young people navigate their way down to the waterfront each week to take part in our free community group cruise program. The pavilion is the perfect venue for our daily orientation to Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands. 

When Sandoval took over as General Manager of the Leader Bank Pavilion, he was recommended by Jensen to be on Save the Harbor's Board of Directors. Sandoval was immediately interested. He has always been passionate about the beach, stemming from his childhood growing up in Southern California.

“I grew up always having access to beaches. Being in California, although there are certain areas that are not as diverse, the beach was pretty diverse. That's kind of one of the basic principles to Save the Harbor’s work.”

Sandoval enjoys working with Save the Harbor because he understands the value of experiencing the water, having grown up regularly visiting the beach. “I think it's a great organization, because it continues to bring people to the water and the beaches in New England. I think that's a cool thing to work with the youth, especially youth that may not necessarily be coming to the water and trying to encourage that.”

When Sandoval moved to the Mansfield Xfinity Center, he was sure to pass on the important partnership between Save the Harbor and Leader Bank Pavilion onto his successor so that thousands of children are able to experience the accessible waterfront spaces that the Seaport has to offer.

Save the Harbor attends the 2022 Earthshot Prize Awards

On December 2nd, four Save the Harbor/Save the Bay staff members attended the second annual Earshot Prize Awards at the MGM Music Hall in Boston. Founded in 2020 by Prince William and the Royal Foundation, the prize honors startups, entrepreneurs, and businesses who have solutions to the climate crisis. 

The Boston Harbor Women of Color Coalition (BHWOCC), founded by Save the Harbor staff members Joye Williams and Maya Smith, was part of the host committee for Friday's event. 

"The Boston Harbor Women of Color Coalition was absolutely honored to join the Earthshot Host Committee," said Joye Williams, Director of Operations at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay and Co-founder of BHWOCC. "It was gratifying and awe-inspiring to witness the global innovative work being done to repair our planet. Their work makes us optimistic about the future and has reenergized our own commitment to our shared environment."

"It was such an honor to attend The Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony,” said María Rodriguez Ortega, Public Policy Coordinator at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. “My experience attending this event felt inspiring and hopeful for a climate-resilient Earth. The innovative work being done by the finalists and winners in the 5 different categories is crucial to making a global impact toward reducing our carbon emissions by 2030." 

Prince William and Princess Kate were on-site, hosting the event. Other notable celebrity appearances were from Rami Malek, Catherine O'Hara, Shailene Woodley and David Beckham, with live performances by Annie Lennox, Chloe x Halle, and Ellie Goulding.

The winners of the Earthshot prize were Mukuru Clean Stoves, for bringing clean stoves to Kenya to reduce air pollution, Kheyti, for creating modular greenhouses for farmers in India, The Queensland Indigenous Women Rangers Network, for training women in modern conservation techniques in Austrailia, Notpla, for creating biodegradable seaweed-based packaging in the U.K., and The 44.01 Project, for turning Co2 emissions into igneous rock in Oman. 

Malene Welch, Save the Harbor Board Member and Co-founder of BHWOCC was also present at the event. 

"The Earthshot Prize award finalists are doing vital work protecting and restoring nature, cleaning our air, reviving our oceans, building a waste-free world, and fixing our climate," Welch said. "Hearing about their solutions and the stories behind them makes me optimistic about the future of our planet and re-energized to get back to work on local solutions with the Boston Harbor Women of Color Coalition and Save the Harbor/Save the Bay."

Save the Harbor wants your ideas for free beach events!

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay is dedicating $25,000 to make your dream event happen this summer on the region’s public beaches from Nahant to Nantasket. Your participation is necessary to make this summer the best one yet. Save the Harbor’s participatory budgeting process has already begun, so submit your ideas here.

Save the Harbor will host the five events that receive the most votes from the community. These events will take place on our region’s public beaches in Nahant, Lynn, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy, and Hull. The goal of participatory budgeting is to center community voices by asking the public what events they want to see on the region’s beaches. With this process, Save the Harbor hopes to bridge access to the beach by engaging communities that may face significant challenges accessing the beach.

“Community members across the state share ownership of so many incredible beaches, so it is exciting to create programming that empowers people to harness that ownership and entrust the community with directly selecting a variety of events that make people feel genuinely excited to get outside and experience programs that reflects them, said Maya Smith, Partnerships and Program Development Director at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.”

In 2022, Save the Harbor centered community voices by distributing $25,000 of Better Beaches funds through a participatory budgeting process. Over 200 community members submitted ideas for the free events they wanted to see on the beaches this summer. More than 600 people voted on the winners: the Teen Beach Bash in South Boston, the Beats on the Beach Block Party in Dorchester, the Diversity Matters Festival in Lynn, which connected thousands of youth, families and community members to the beach to experience free, fun and accessible summertime activities.

 

“We hope to center the voices of people of color, people with disabilities, and non-native English speakers,” said Maria Rodriguez Ortega, Public Policy Coordinator at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. “These groups face barriers that prevent them from enjoying our region’s beaches due to discrimination and limited access. We strive to make our beautiful natural resources welcoming, safe, and accessible to all.”

Idea collection and voting are open for community members of all ages who live in Massachusetts or use Department of Conservation and Recreation beaches. To have your idea considered for the ballot, please create an idea that can be free and open to the public, can take place in Summer 2023, and complies with DCR beach usage guidelines. We will be prioritizing events that center people of color, people with disabilities, people who do not primarily communicate in English, and other groups that do not currently have equitable access to the waterfront.

To submit your idea for a free beach event, fill out the form here. You can also fill out the form here, translatable into over 100 languages.

Save the Harbor will be collecting ideas until January 27th. These ideas will be used to create a ballot to be voted on by the public. Voting will take place from February 5th to March 6th. The winners will be announced at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s Annual Shamrock Splash in partnership with Harpoon Brewery on March 12th.

The work we do at Save the Harbor/ Save the Bay would not be possible without the support of our Youth Program funders, including Bay State Cruise Company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, The Coca-Cola Company, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Massachusetts Bay Lines, Eastern Salt Company, Inc., Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Harpoon Brewery, JetBlue, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, National Grid, Richard M. Saltonstall Charitable Foundation, Alexandria, The Boston Foundation, Boston Properties – Atlantic Wharf, Camp Harbor View Foundation, Cell Signaling Technology, City of Boston Department of Youth, Engagement & Employment, Comcast Foundation, Cronin Group, LLC, Exelon Generation, Goody Clancy, Hood Business Park, HYM Investment Group, Income Research and Management Charitable Fund, John Hancock Financial Services, Leader Bank Pavilion/Live Nation, Maine Community Foundation, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, National Development, National Grid Foundation.

To view our full list of youth program sponsors, visit blog.savetheharbor.org/2022/07/thanks-to-our-2022-youth-program