When we started our organization two years ago, we envisioned having a place on the water where we could reconnect young people to the rivers that had been cut off from their communities. With a lot of help from our partners, we have secured a spot at the Middle Branch Marina where we are doing just that.

Yesterday, we learned we received a grant from Forever Maryland to make getting out on the water a reality. The grant will provide funds to purchase safety equipment and a couple of canoes. 

Eventually, we would like to take groups out from our marina and offer it as a place for other environmental groups to do water testing and get out to areas of the river to look at conditions. We will need more than two canoes for that, but it’s a start.

A trip from our marina on the Middle Branch offers a panorama of the city. There are the low-slung World War II-esque apartments that many Black soldiers found themselves relegated to after fighting fascism. There is a gleaming downtown, an industrial underbelly, a still-spewing incinerator and many shuttered factories. There is also a city yet to be built, that includes the promise of inclusion that has so often failed to materialize. And you can see it all from a canoe.

We’re so grateful for this support. We hope it will allow us to open our beautiful marina to more human visitors, as we are already blessed with many avian ones. Thank you to the Maryland Environmental Trust, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and Forever Maryland for the support.