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A partnership between Richemont-North America and Row New York brought dozens of the Swiss fine goods company’s employees to our boathouses in late May to volunteer their time and energy.  Each volunteer day saw our coaches and Richemont’s employees working side by side, making valuable boathouse and equipment improvements that make serving the youth in our programs easier.

Richemont’s employees usually dedicate their days to bringing the company’s watches, jewelry, and apparel to the world.  On May 21 and 22, they were flexing altogether different muscles by carrying boats, getting a taste of what rowing on the water is like, and by working around our boathouses.  In Queens, we needed new boat sling-holding hooks installed in the boathouse.  With the assistance of our guests from Richemont, they are now firmly in place.  In Manhattan, they scrubbed coaches’ launches, washed boats, repaired ergs, and sanded oars to prepare them for painting.  These were all key tasks.  We’re very thankful for their help on these projects, which only represent a small part of what they did during their visit.

The Richemont-North America volunteer days were part of an exciting broader partnership.  Richemont’s volunteerism commitment means that our programs will run smoother.  Their added financial commitment will allow us to do even more for New York City youth. This partnership was fostered by our organization’s relationship with youth development nonprofit Up2Us, their supporters at the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, and Laureus’ generous supporters at Richemont.  Up2Us supports youth development-through-sports programs across the country, while Laureus supports social good-promoting sports endeavors generally.

Queens Novice Coach Breanne Fitzsimmons recapped her borough’s volunteering day this way:

The Queens boathouse RNA volunteer day cleared up some lingering jobs to be done at the boathouse in addition to vastly improving the overall condition and organization of Row New York’s equipment. For such a tall order, the number of volunteers RNA provided made these tasks more than do-able within a day’s work.

Our RNA volunteer day started off with very high energy, splitting each task up into a 5-10 person group led by an RNA representative and a Row New York staff. Tasks included re-organizing boat hardware, sorting out and organizing our workbench and racing toolboxes, and cleaning the inside of the boathouse as well as the dock. Each of these tasks now make the Queens boathouse that much more clean and efficient.

Some of the larger tasks, however, would never have been done were it not for the numbers RNA provided. One of these jobs was cleaning and buffing our rowing shells, and rinsing out our rowing shells’ hardware. These jobs took up the majority of the day.  However, our boats are now not only shining, but they will also be more sustainable. Cleaning the shells and the hardware has added years to our boats.

Another large task that changed the face of our boathouse was moving and assembling our new 8-person barge. This barge is a new addition to our barge fleet and will now allow us to serve even more adaptive rowers! This barge also allowed us to take our RNA volunteers out for a quick row at the end of the day. We hope to see them all out on the water in the future!

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