AMBTIF Makes Waves in its Inaugural Year
The AMBTIF team made waves this September with four different events in four different cities across the Midwest and Northeast. To date, the AMBTIF team has engaged with four of our core partners across the Midwest and Northeast, introducing the sport of rowing to over 1000 young people who had never tried the sport. On the heels of these events, more than $100,000 has been raised by local stakeholders to support our core partners.
Event attendees include U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, Kyle Draper of the Sacramento Kings, WNBA Chicago Sky, The Obama Foundation, UFC Fighter Uriah Hall, Actress Quincy Tyler Bernstine, as well as Olympians David Banks, Aquil Abdullah, Alex Osborne, Mike Teti, Paul Teti, Mary Mazzio, rowers from the Manley Crew Team, and several others who have organically begun accompanying Arshay to various cities. In fact, former US Team coaches (Kris Korzeniowski and others) have already volunteered to join Mike Teti to quietly “coach the coaches” in several of these cities.
The AMBTIF mission is to ensure sustainability through community support. Local elected officials including the Mayor of Cornwall and state legislators from Baltimore were in attendance as well as neighboring small businesses, like City View Kitchen, who had sponsored some events. Community support is in addition to two brand new HUDSON shells and twelve brand new Concept2 oars and ten brand new RowErgs. Moreover, AMBTIF funds are designated to support transportation, swimming, academics, and an "I Rise" stipend which is restricted to the salary for a rowing coach of color.
In the days preceding each event, Arshay and Denise visited each program’s partner schools and spoke to multiple student assemblies. In the photos below, hundreds of students had the opportunity to learn about Arshay’s story and what rowing can do for them. The “on the water” events followed the school visits, where buses transported the students directly to the event for their first learn-to-row day.
In my opinion, what is a most beautiful thing is that the story starts with Arshay but it doesn’t end there. With over a thousand youth of color trying the sport of rowing for the first time across four different cities, program recipients of AMBTIF are going to grow and exponentially multiply the story for what the next generation of rowers will look like.
In the same way, AMBTIF started with these special events, but the work doesn’t end there. The pipeline for AMBTIF programs’ sustainability is being established through strong relationships with schools, local support from elected officials, sponsorship from small businesses, and investment from local stakeholders. The work to retain new rowers and maintain new sources of funding to further support these core AMBTIF programs now begins.