Sail Habilitation by Guest Author Tim Fletcher

I became involved with this organization a few years
ago.  Both my parents were stroke victims, and both were paralyzed as a
result.  Frankly, until that time, the disabled were relatively
“invisible” to me.  But, when your daily routine is suddenly changed —
a whole new world opens up.  I knew that I would have to do more in my
life to help ‘people with special needs’ — and I loved sailing.  So, I
got this great idea — how about doing something with handicapped
sailing.  Fortunately for me, many people with far more experience were
already pioneering this venue — and by amazing coincidence, a program
exists right here in New Jersey — and not far away at all.  So I got
involved in 2006 as a volunteer.  Now, I’m hoping to do more to assist
this fine organization.

Sail Habilitation was founded by Dr, Stephanie Argyris in the
mid-1990’s, as a way to help with rehabilitation in certain phyiscal
therapies.  Stephanie had sailed Sneakboxes growing up on Barnegat Bay,
and got the idea that the very tactile nature of sailing could help
people in recovery.  From that, grew a program of holding community
sailing events open to all people of special needs.  These events are
currently hosted once or twice a year at the Lavallette Yacht Club on
the Tom’s River in New Jersey.  They are open to anyone with a special
need, including the extreme elderly, and their caregivers.  The
event generally lasts about half of a day.  Clients with special needs
and their caregivers arrive early in the morning and are fed
breakfast.  Volunteers, under the direction of professional Physical
Therapists, assist in outfitting the clients with safety gear and
transferring them into sail and power boats, donated by members of the
club and other local sailors.  Clients enjoy some time on the water,
then return for lunch before ldeparting.

This is great program that needs to continue and grow.  At this
time, we are urgently seeking donations to fund this year’s community
sail, scheduled at Lavellette for Saturday, August 1st.  Essentially,
Sail Habilitation needs to raise $4000, in order to cover the premium
for the liability insurance required to conduct the events (this
premium would also cover any additional events for the year).  Sail
Habilitation is strictly a volunteer non-profit (503-C) organization.
Every $1 that is donated  goes directly to the special-needs clients —
all other items, foods, docks, boats, management, etc, are donated.
Very few charitable organizations can make this claim.

You can read more about Sail Habitation here and by Charles Zusman from the Star and Ledger here.

Here are members of SailHabilitation “Team
Odyssey” who raced the Sonar class for the USA in the Paralypics last
year in China.  This is a high profile organization, and much more can
be realized for these folks.  More is found on their website.

How to Help

The nonprofit Sail-Habilitation must raise $4,000 for insurance to
continue holding free Community Sailing Days for people with physical
disabilities or special needs. Although the next community sail is
planned for Aug. 1 at the Lavallette Yacht Club, it cannot be held
unless the group can pay for insurance.  Those who would like to contribute may send a check made out to Sail-Habilitation to P.O. Box 228, Island Heights, NJ 08732.

For more information, e-mail sailhabilitation@aol.com, and the organization’s acting president, Antoinette Gobar, will respond.

PS: I just mailed a check – Adam