SailFuture Sets Course Toward a Worthy Mission

By Airwaves writer Clinton Hayes

For Founder and Executive Director Michael Long, SailFuture is built on personal experience. Having spent 2 years in and out of Florida’s juvenile justice system, his probation officer sent him from program to program, but nothing ever clicked. He continued down a pretty rough path until finally hitting rock bottom, and at that point he realized a change was needed. Michael “wanted to build a program that actually worked,” one that not only created second chances, but actually convinced youth to take advantage of them.

SailFuture is located in Sarasota County Florida and currently operates out of the New College of Florida sailing facility. The way the program works is by pairing college age mentors with at risk youth from the local area and giving them time in small sailboats. The program is unique and VERY different from similar programs because the mentors themselves are not sailors. This puts the mentors and the students on the same level, allowing a strong relationship to form. They have pulled away from the traditional sailor and coach model and focus on using sailing to teach life lessons. This may sound like stereotypical talk but when the mentors don’t know how to sail either it really becomes a working partnership. The students aren’t just listening to the mentors give orders but are listening and observing how the mentors learn and solve problems. The big “life lesson” through sailing is the ability to learn on your own and have the confidence to figure things out and execute on a plan.
Sailing Director CJ Lee spent his youth learning to sail in Annapolis, MD before moving to Florida. Both he and Michael recognized the impact sailing has had on their lives, as well as the impact it could have on others, and wanted to incorporate what they learned from sailing directly into SailFuture’s curriculum. CJ gives this example, “when the students are learning points of sail, we do not list off close hauled, close reach…etc. We give them marks to sail to and tell them to keep their bows pointed at the mark and adjust their sails until they start moving. The students learn the importance of keeping their eyes on the goal and always making adjustments to get there. They learn that the longer they wait to adjust, the harder it becomes to get back on track.” The goal of the program is not to teach kids to become great sailors but to prove to them it’s possible to set and achieve goals and hopefully encourage them to set new goals in life. You can really see how this mission pushes students beyond what a traditional sailing program might.

More than a sailing partner, mentors are also each student’s personal tutor. All SailFuture students are in high school with GPAs below 1.5, chronic behavioral challenges, and significant family trauma at home. Sailing teaches life lessons while the mentor creates an individualized academic plan “that becomes a student ‘chart’ to graduation.” The BIG GOAL of the program is to get all students to graduate high school with plans for the future and the confidence that they can go wherever they want to in life.
Since May 2013 SailFuture has impacted the lives of over 50 youth. Mentors spend 10-12 hours a week in the program with the kids but often much more of their own free time outside of program days. The program is so new that long-term success cannot yet be measured but with the significant emotional and time commitment of these mentors coupled with the unique program its safe to say that lives will be changed.  The way SailFuture is set up it can also be scaled to other locations. It’s set up for small two person boats at college and high school facilities (or community sailing centers). Locally it is run and managed by college students who also serve as mentors. Although being a mentor requires a big commitment they try to engage anyone who is interested as a board member, speaker, volunteer for the day, or boat owner taking students for a day sail.

SailFuture is working hard to secure more funding to ensure long-term s couple weeks ago they were accepted along with several hundred other initiatives lead by students to attend this year’s Clinton Global Initiatives University. Out of that, they were picked to participate in a crowd funding competition with 31 other teams where they raised over $6000 in less then 2 weeks. Although the competition is over, donations are still being accepted on the website- http://www.crowdrise.com/NewCollegeofFlorida-CGIU

Michael wanted to personally thank all the college students running SailFuture especially CJ, Evan Murphy, Julia De Aragon, Aaron Baker, Batya Levy, and the mentors.  Without them, none of this would be possible. As Michael says “when you put two people who don’t know how to sail on a boat and say, figure it out, they are bound to come back with bumps and bruises, failures and successes.” We wish SailFuture the best! http://www.sailfuture.org