Harbor Camp

Harbor Camp is a program developed and run by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance to provide a meaningful water-based summer camp experience to hundreds of children in the New York – New Jersey metropolitan area.

At the MWA our passion for Harbor Camp is based on the possibility that every child in the metropolitan area has the ability to swim and the opportunity to boat on the water that surrounds and defines our region’s economy, geography, ecology, and history.

In 2008, the MWA facilitated a series of task force meetings with over 60 organizations that use the harbor as a classroom to plan big dreams for waterfront education. As we brainstormed many great ideas, one clear theme emerged – we must get every child on the water. Harbor Camp is the vehicle by which we and others realize this goal.

Harbor Camp seeks to achieve several goals. First, Harbor Camp aims to introduce young people to the fundamental fact that water surrounds us. Harbor Camp is a means for these youngsters to experience, and many for the first time, the excitement and the beauty of a waterfront city.

Second, Harbor Camp seeks to provide access of the waterfront to these youngsters by providing them the knowledge that recreational opportunities on and in the water do exist.

Third, Harbor Camp aims to provide ecological, environmental, maritime, and/or historical education alongside fun and entertainment, and to cultivate stewardship in its participants. It aims to elicit from these young students a desire to protect and preserve the environmental integrity of their natural resources.

Lastly, Harbor Camp aims for pure and simple fun – fun on, near, and around our water.

Harbor Camp 2008

2008 marked the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s fourth year sponsoring Harbor Camp, and marked the start of a unique and productive partnership between MWA and United Neighborhood Houses (UNH) to provide a series of on-the-water field trips in New York City.

From early July through early October, Harbor Camp 2008 brought more than 775 children to sites in Manhattan and Brooklyn including the following field trip venues and Alliance Partners: The Science Barge, the Schooner Adirondack, the Fireboat John J. Harvey, the Waterfront Museum, the Tugboat Pegasus. Children ages 5-17 participated in 20 different field trips.

Harbor Camp brought hundreds of low-income kids on exciting trips that were fun and enlightening. One Settlement House staff person said, “It gives students a chance to view the city from a new vantage point. Most of the kids could never have a chance to sail.” Union Settlement was so grateful for Harbor Camp that they honored the MWA at their Rising Stars summer awards ceremony.

2009 will be MWA’s fifth year of directing and managing Harbor Camp. For more information about Harbor Camp, contact Cortney Worrall, Director of Programs at cworrall[at]waterfrontalliance.org.