Discipline, teamwork and perseverance are all skills that make a good rower. But at Philadelphia City Rowing, they’re not just focused on making good athletes. They’re also focused on making good citizens.
“Rowing is really, really hard on your body physically and also mentally,” Michaela Donally said. “If you can break that mental barrier, ‘Oh, I’m able to do more even though my body hurts,’ that’s a skill you can take into so many aspects of life after rowing.”
Donally is an alumni of Philadelphia City Rowing as well as a coach. The organization helps Philadelphia public school students branch out and try new things by taking them out of their neighborhoods and onto the Schuylkill River.
The nonprofit has been running for 15 years and has helped more than 5,000 students during that time period. The group is still looking to expand and received a huge helping hand in doing so after they were one of six organizations in the area to be rewarded $40,000 through NBCUniversal’s Local Impact Grant.
“Before I came in, I didn’t even know rowing was a sport,” King Humphrey Whitfield, a 16-year-old Philadelphia student who was helped by the nonprofit, told NBC10. “I was like, ‘I’m not doing this. I’m not getting out on the water.’”
Now Whitfield thrives on the water.
“Free programs like this are a necessary part of the community that allows people who could possibly be the best to be to come on and actually try and see what they’ve got,” Seth Lopez, a Philadelphia City Rowing alumni and assistant coach, told NBC10.
While the organization has had teams compete in regattas and nationals, it’s their accomplishments out of the water that are the most impressive, with a 100% on time graduation rate for seniors in the club and a 98% college attendance rate, according to the nonprofit’s leaders.
“I would definitely row at Temple,” Whitfield told NBC10. “I visited their boathouse. It’s so nice. They have these big boats. It’s something like I’m ready for my life to get into.”
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