Its Been Real

Over the past 6-8 weeks, I had the opportunity to work with some amazing people. These "coworkers" as some would call, are my family. They may not be immediate, but after countless efforts at providing perfect service to the city we are a unit. As these last days approach us, I would like to personally thank everyone that works with us. All the staff in the office, the interns, Bruce, Patty, fellow LHE's and SHE's, etc. This summer has been a great success, we achieved success over certain parts of struggle, and as a unit we prospered.

This Sunday, I depart to school, to continue my personal journey with the intentions of success for the future. Many of the people I work, have offered their insight on life and college, and I have learned a lot. I worked alongside a fellow classmate, the VP of my grade at Stonehill, Maxwell Kennedy-Reid. We are tackling this obstacle, as friends, but brothers after this summer. It was an honor getting to work with him.

I spent countless honors on the beach with the kids, playing double bounce on the Provincetown II, and offering great service to  over 5000+ children of Boston and surrounding cities. This summer has drew me closer to the harbor, everyday I enjoyed work more and more. Bruce always told us at meetings how he enjoyed this summer a lot, and I believed him as it was active, but as the summer has now ended, I could not agree in any other matter. To everyone apart of our team, I wish you the until next time. This summer was good, and next year  I have the intentions to return and make it GREAT (Tony the tiger voice) !

-Ahmed Hassan

I Think We Are Going To Need a Bigger Boat...

Save the Harbor wouldn't be what it is without it's wonderful staff members and this years celebration to honor them with a fun day out in Boston Harbor was a total success! This year was a continuous day of fun as we set sail at 10:15am for Spectacle Island.   As soon as we made landfall, several of the more athletic staffers walked up the hill and organized a game of kickball. The rest of us hit the beach and took a refreshing swim in the wonderfully clean Boston Harbor. We all worked up quite an appetite for the lunch, which is more like a feast, that Patty Foley and Bruce Berman prepared.  After lunch the fun continued at the beach and there was another very competitive kickball game, thankfully with no serious injuries.

Every year, Bruce and Patty organize a delightful afternoon on Spectacle Island complete with food, fun, and smiles. When Bruce and Patty first started doing "Staff Day" in 2000, there were only 14 staff members who could all fit on Bruce and Patty's boat, Veranda. Now, there's 42 staffers who all have to come out on a much larger boat, courtesy of Boston Harbor Cruises.  I'm sure we will need to have a much larger boat by next year, as Save the Harbor is a growing non-profit and will be a part of more persons' lives.

Saying Goodbye to Spectacle

Happy Monday Harbor Explorers!  This is the last week of All Access for the 2012 summer -- as always, the weeks just fly by!  Last week was spent on Spectacle Island, and we had a nice change from our usual routine on Tuesday when the entire STH/STB staff joined us for staff day!

Tuesday was the perfect day for a trip to Spectacle -- and as a special treat, lunch was provided by leaders Patty Foley and Bruce Berman on board their boat.  It's so nice for all of the summer staff to hang out together at lunch -- thank you to Bruce and Patty for putting together a great day!

After filling up on hot dogs and chips, Thi and I made our way along the beach looking for sea glass, and ended the day with a quick swim -- and some monstrous waves!

The rest of the week went by too quickly for my liking -- before I knew it, we had come to our last day on the island.  Spectacle truly is one of the most beautiful islands in the harbor, and I love that I get to spend my times introducing thousands of kids to the treasure that is in their own backyards.  Many thanks to curator Alan, rangers Kevin, Justin, and Dennis, and Spectacle mascot Max for being such great resources and sources of entertainment throughout the summer!

Until next time, Spectacle!

-- Carolyn

Staff Day !

Hey , its Brianna again. All summer long working with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay has been a wonderful experience that on Tuesday , August 7, 2012 we were introduced with the opportunity to eat out of Bruce and Patty's boat. We had hot dogs , chips , drinks , and cookies. As a full staff we got to play capture the flag , go and enjoy the water , and also enjoy the children that we brought along with us to Spectacle Island. It was my first time celebrating staff day with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay so it was a fun experience except I didn't play the annual Capture the Flag with everyone. Instead I chose to go in the water. This summer I have enjoyed hanging with my staff so today was a day to just sit back and enjoy the weather with people that I work with everyday. I have really enjoyed my time with Thi Tran. She has been the sunlight to my morning. Without the sun there would not be a morning. Even though we are close friends she still helps me learn about Sea Glass and learning about Save the Harbor / Save the Bay. She makes my days fun and enjoyable. Thi and I learn how to do things together from gimp with the kids to finding other colors of sea glass. That day she introduced me to having raw sushi I mean it wasnt bad but that it was something that was new to me.



By: Brianna Charles

Hello adventure seekers,

Last week was the last week of summer programs for STH/STB, but I still had time for one more trip to Spectacle Island to end my summer on a good note. The weather could not have been more perfect for some kayaking, kite flying, sea glass hunting, and swimming!


After stopping at Piers Park to pick up some intrepid sailors looking to explore the Harbor Islands, Vinh, David, David's daughter, and I spent a very productive afternoon combing the beach for sea glass. It was a little bittersweet since this was the last time I was going to be on the beach before heading back to school, and I was lucky enough to find some really unusual colors and shapes; I even found a marble! The rest of the afternoon was devoted to cooling off in the water before waving good-bye to the island one last time.

Since the 2011 season of All Access is officially over, I'd like to take the time to thank the people who make it so much fun, starting with the groups that come out with us. Kids, you ROCK! Your enthusiasm inspires me, and keeps every day interesting. Counselors, you do a great job helping the day run smoothly and it's great to see you all have the time of your lives on the islands as well.

To David Coffin, All Access leader extraordinaire; to Michelle and Brianne, schedulers and crisis avoiders; and to Bruce and Patty, Save the Harbor's fearless leaders: thank you for making this program what it is, for allowing so many children from Boston to experience the wonders of the sea, and for allowing me to be a part of it.

And last but certainly not least, to my coworkers from the past weeks, thank you for taking charge, making children laugh, and keeping me sane. I am so glad I got to meet you this summer, and I hope to see you again in the near future!


Until next time,

~Carolyn

http://betterbeaches.blogspot.com/2010/06/more-good-news-for-beaches-of-boston.html

For the third year running Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has given valuable assets to fund events around the Boston beaches area.

At a press conference on the Boston Fish Pier on Saturday, June 12th, the non-profit organization Save the Harbor / Save the Bay awarded $30,500 in grants to 11 groups to support 35 free public events in nine Boston Harbor region beachfront communities from Nahant to Nantasket.

In addition, Save the Harbor announced that in the fall they will introduce the “Best of the Beaches” awards of up to $2,000 to organizations that deliver outstanding events on our region’s public beaches in Lynn, Nahant, Revere, Winthrop, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy and Hull this summer.

This year’s "Better Beaches" events will include beachfront concert series, kite festivals, sand sculpting competitions, beachside art shows, environmental education programs, family fun nights and reading programs, volleyball tournaments and several beach festivals.

The program is made possible by a $25,000 grant from the Boston Foundation, $25,000 of in-kind support from the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), and the financial support of Save the Harbor’s corporate partners at National Grid, Comcast Massachusetts, and JetBlue Airways.

"I love our beaches. I love all these groups and Save the Harbor/Save the Bay for making them work even better," said State Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein who co-chairs Metropolitan Beaches Commission.

“There is so much we can do to make environmental initiatives a priority,” said Ronda Ivy-McLeod, manager of regional marketing for JetBlue Airways. “We are taking action by supporting Save the Harbor / Save the Bay and their local partners, and invite the community to join us. Every one of us, whether an individual or a corporation, one contribution at a time, can do much to help protect our environment and strengthen our communities.”
In addition to the grants, local Friends groups will raise an additional $160,000 in direct and in-kind support for their events and capacity-building initiatives, resulting in a total investment of more than $190,000 in free events and activities on the region’s public beaches.

“From the start of the Boston Harbor Clean-up it was clear that Boston's restored harbor and renewed waterfront would be an economic engine as well as a major community resource,” said Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation, an early funder of Save the Harbor / Save the Bay. “That vision has been born out by the success of organizations and business in communities across the region that have drawn thousands of local residents to these clean and accessible public beaches.”

With the Better Beaches program in its third year, Save the Harbor called on local beach groups to submit proposals that strengthen their organizations and allow them to sustain beach programming in the longer term. Groups responded with creative revenue-generating ideas for merchandising kites, T-shirts, totes, and hats as well as developing corporate partnerships, membership drives, raffles, fundraising events, marketing and media strategies.

“All these groups share a love for their beaches,” said Patricia Foley, President of Save the Harbor / Save the Bay. "These great programs would simply not be possible without the hard work and enthusiasm of these Friends groups.”

Save the Harbor / Save the Bay introduced the Better Beaches Small Grants Program in 2008 in response to a key finding of Metropolitan Beaches Commission’s report which called for increased programming on the area beaches. In the program’s first two years Save the Harbor / Save the Bay funded events designed to jumpstart public activities and programming on public beaches. Through 2009, the program leveraged a total of over $180,000 investment in free events and programs on the region's public beach.

Be sure to frequent these events and get the most out of the Boston beaches this summer!

Building on Better Beaches

At Save the Harbor/Save the Bay we love this time of year because people up and down the coast are excited to clean up their beaches and show them off to new visitors – and we get to help.

Thanks to generous contributions from The Boston Foundation, National Grid and Comcast, we anticipate that we will have dozens of fun and free events in every beach community from Nahant to Nantasket, so wherever you call home, there should be an event on a nearby beach.

Our president Patty Foley reflected last spring that “It’s remarkable what people who love their beach and their community can accomplish with just a little bit of help.”

After spending some time working with people who love their beaches, I couldn’t agree more. Most everyone that we work with fell in love with “the beach” (whichever it may have been) early and has given back often.

Especially now that we have heard the ideas for the summer from our friends groups on our Metropolitan Beaches from Nahant to Nantasket, these words resonate once again.

The Better Beaches project – bringing people back to our beaches – is never-ending and sometimes challenging but it can also be a great deal of fun. This year, with a little bit of encouragement, we are hearing from people from all of our beach communities about how they plan to take their beach stewardship to the next level through media partnerships, advertising, outreach, fundraising, merchandising, and membership initiatives.

Together, in 2010, these friends will create and sell thousands of T-shirts and other items, develop an online store, produce a TV ad, and work hard to bake several other fresh ideas into working models for financial sustainability.

Strengthened by these strategies, we are confident our friends groups will put together an impressive slate of events from Constitution Beach’s kickoff Beach Party to Nantasket Beach’s Endless Summer that will give people throughout the region plenty of reasons to stretch their summer season and find new things to love about our beaches.

Aside from fulfilling our goal of bringing more people out to the beaches, this year’s series of events will generate a lot of great images and press, stories – and most importantly – memories.

We really hope you are able to make it out to some of this year’s events and buy some kites, totes and T’s. We will use the Better Beaches Blog and our Boston Harbor FacebookPage to keep you posted about beach happenings and events and the great groups that host them.