Basementeer Spotlight: Waterside Workshops
ABOUT WATERSIDE WORKSHOPS
We are proud to call Waterside Workshops a Basementeer beneficiary! Waterside Workshops uses vocational education paired with outdoor experiences to promote youth development, encourage sustainable and healthy lifestyles, and cultivate positive change in the Bay Area community. For over 13 years they have provided job-training, outdoor recreation, and holistic wraparound support for Bay Area youth while offering services to the community, which includes a bicycle shop and repair facility, a wooden boat building shop, bicycle and boat rentals, and a youth-run coffee shop.
Waterside serves over 300 youth each year, and engages 30 youth interns in their job training and outdoor recreation programs on a weekly basis. They serve low-income, ethnically diverse youth ages 14-24 from the communities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond with a special focus on foster youth, homeless youth, youth who have been previously incarcerated, and youth who are at risk of dropping out of high school. 80 percent of their youth in our programs are youth of color.
WHAT THEY DO
Recent outdoor trips have brought them to Point Reyes, China Camp, Yosemite, Humboldt-Redwoods State Park, the Sonoma Coast, and Lake Tahoe, where youth have had first-time experiences mountain biking, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, and camping. With your support, they can continue these transformative multi-night trips where youth have their first opportunity to camp in a National Park, touch the snow, swim in the ocean, or sleep under the stars.
Waterside also provides underrepresented youth with nature-based leadership and career building opportunities. These opportunities help them develop the skills they need to enjoy a lifetime of outdoor recreation as well as prepare for jobs in the outdoor recreation industry. Our programs foster the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts and environmental stewards who will be leaders in their communities.
HOW WE WILL BE SUPPORTING
We are currently working to create employment opportunities in the bike shop for their recent graduates, and when group gatherings make their safe return, we will be working to support them adventuring in the outdoors through our Sports Basement Outdoors programming. We're also developing options for our rental gear to be made available free of use for Waterside Workshop and similar beneficiaries.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT
You can donate to support their free services and programs and of course, support them through the Basementeer Program by making them your official Basementeer beneficiary.
1 comment
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Jim O'Melia says...
Please make my basementeer beneficiary Waterside Workshops. Thank you.
On July 29, 2020