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Dec. 15, 2004
A Strong Year for CISA's Support of Youth and Sailing
NEWPORT BEACH,
Calif.---The California International Sailing Association will
be sending 35 young sailors to Miami after Christmas for the
annual Orange Bowl Regatta, concluding another successful year
of promoting opportunities in the sport for boys and girls of
all levels of skill and from all walks of life.
The Miami
event---officially, US SAILING�s Junior Olympic Sailing
Festival-Orange Bowl---is for sailors 18 years and younger.
There were 620 competitors last year. CISA President Tim Hogan
said, "Our purpose is to send youngsters who haven't had the
experience of an out-of-town regatta to sail in a different
venue against competitors they haven't seen."
But that's
only part of CISA's mission, which is to expand the sport by
providing equipment and opportunity not only to future
world-class prospects but to all teenagers, including
multi-racial youth newly introduced to sailing.
CISA, a non-profit organization established in 1971, offers
travel grants, direct sponsorship and racing clinics. Since 1984
it has advanced more than $5 million to programs throughout the
country. More than a thousand sailors benefited in 2004 alone.
Unlike
other nations, the U.S. has no federally supported assistance
programs for its amateur sportsmen or for the development of
young talent. CISA relies on contributions, large and small,
from corporations and ordinary individuals. Because it is
non-profit and tax-exempt, all contributions are tax deductible
under section 501.c.3 of the Internal
Revenue Code.
The
benefactors have ranged from weekend sailors to Roy E. Disney,
the entertainment icon whose Pyewacket boats have been major
performers in the U.S. and Europe. In 1999 Disney donated
$500,000 to CISA to be spent over five years. The funds have
been used to support inner-city programs, pay travel expenses to
regattas and to purchase new sails for 60 CFJ dinghies used by
various youth programs throughout the state.
Frank
Wells, a CISA director, said, "Roy specifically stated that a
large part of the funds were to go to disadvantaged and at-risk
kids who would otherwise never have the chance to sail."
The funds
also were used to buy nine International 420 dinghies---common
in Europe but scarce in the U.S.---to be used for training.
Disney's
five-year contribution runs out this year, but he said, "We can
say it's going to be renewed."
He hopes
that other dedicated sailors with the means will follow his
lead.
"It's so
far unique, but it ought not to be," he said.
The annual
advanced racing clinic each spring at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in
Long Beach is a keystone of CISA's operations. This year was
typical when there were 134 students from 14 states, including
Hawaii, and British Columbia receiving four days of intense
instruction on and off the water from some of this country's
best sailors, including Olympic competitors and medal winners.
Away from
the spotlight, CISA works at the grassroots level, where Disney
has been the principal source of community sailing funds to
support seven West Coast organizations. The US Sailing Center in
Long Beach for the second year ran a multi-racial program for
boys and girls ages 12 to 17, in partnership with the
NAACP Long Beach Branch Community
Impact Program and the Long Beach Yacht Club Sailing
Foundation. Programs in the past have included participants from
a home for abused girls.
The Mission
Bay Aquatic Center in San Diego hosted 20 youngsters, some with
disabilities, at its Youth Watersports Camp. The San Diego Yacht
Club Sailing Foundation sponsored
advanced sailing instruction. Youth programs director
Kevin Waldick wrote to CISA: "Without your help [the boys and
girls] would never have had the opportunity to experience
sailing."
Cal State
Northridge runs a program for disadvantaged youth at Castaic
Lake with 360 participants this year.
Chip
Robinson, program director for the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA
in San Diego, wrote: "For all of our youth, these were their
first experiences of going to the beach, let alone learning how
to sail."
An
8-year-old wrote to Disney, through CISA: "Thank you for the
chance to have sailing lessons. I think that water sports will
be a part of my life forever."
CISA's
blueprint for its popular annual advanced racing clinic also has
been offered to Sail Newport in Rhode Island and an organization
in Seattle.
"They'll
run it and we'll help to fund it," Hogan said.
CALIFORNIA
INTERNATIONAL SAILING ASSOCIATION
P.O. Box 17992
Irvine, CA 92713-7992
www.cisasailing.org
President
Tim Hogan, 3090 Pullman Ave, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 434-4400
[email protected]
PUBLICITY
Rich Roberts
(310) 835-2526
[email protected]
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