Bow Seat Receives a $10,000 Grant from the Island Foundation, Inc.

January 25, 2021

(Boston, MA) – For the second consecutive year, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs (Bow Seat) has received a $10,000 grant from the Island Foundation, Inc. to support its work educating students about the issues impacting ocean health, uplifting youth voices for environmental conservation, and inspiring them to participate in positive, creative actions.

This new grant will support Bow Seat’s 2021 Ocean Awareness Contest, an annual global educational program that invites youth to learn about and explore the connections between human activities and the health of our ocean through visual art, writing, film, music, dance, and multimedia. More than 18,000 middle and high schoolers from all 50 U.S. states and over 100 countries have participated in the program, which has been at the forefront of introducing them to critical issues in ocean conservation such as overfishing, endangered species, plastic pollution, and climate change.

With the theme “Water Rising,” the 2021 Contest will encourage participants to share their personal stories about water and its connection to climate change, health, justice, and culture—stories that need to be told in order to sustain and conserve this precious resource for current and future generations of life on Earth. In particular, the Island Foundation’s generous support will help Bow Seat:

• Increase participation of students from Southeastern Massachusetts, the Cape and Islands, and the overall state, growing the number of Commonwealth teens who have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be creators of positive change.
• Assist Massachusetts educators in sponsoring their students’ participation in the Contest, despite the challenges resulting from the current public health crisis, in order to encourage interdisciplinary and intersectional environmental learning.
• Provide educators and students with enrichment activities and programming that teach about environmental issues and creative communications.
• For all of the above goals, increase engagement among those who are most affected, but often underrepresented, in conservation efforts, especially Black and Brown voices.

“We have valued the Island Foundation’s care, flexibility, and assistance during this challenging year and are so appreciative of their continued support, which is a validation of the achievements of our innovative programming and of our shared belief in the power of art-making to educate, inspire, and activate youth,” said Linda Cabot, founder and president of Bow Seat. “We are excited that the 2021 Contest—our tenth program anniversary—is expanding from our traditional focus on the ocean to include water in its many forms, which makes the theme relevant and personal to broader, more diverse groups of people and aligns with the Island Foundation’s priority of promoting environmental justice and including the voices of those most affected by environmental harms.”

The 2021 Ocean Awareness Contest is open now through June 14, 2021, to students ages 11-18 worldwide.

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About Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs: Bow Seat is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit whose mission is to educate and engage youth in ocean conservation and advocacy through the arts. Visit bowseat.org for more information about the Ocean Awareness Contest, upcoming initiatives and events, and collection of student artwork and creative media.