We are excited to announce today that M&T Charitable Foundation has renewed their support for the Champlain Longboats program at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum with a $10,000 gift.
Champlain Longboats is the Museum’s innovative boat building and rowing program for local high school and middle school students. This program is designed to foster youth development through immersive educational experiences, while also creating a connected system that grows each year: Students in the boat building program work together during the school year to build and launch a traditional wooden boat, which then joins the Museum’s fleet of boats for youth rowing teams from middle and high schools around Vermont in the spring and fall.
For over 25 years, the Champlain Longboats program has served as a partner site for local schools, providing non-traditional educational and fitness opportunities for teens. In 2024, more than 250 students participated in some portion of Champlain Longboats boat building or rowing program. We’re honored to continue the work of this program with support from donors and sponsors like M&T Charitable Foundation.
“We are pleased to provide another $10,000 grant to the Champlain Longboats program,” said Kathy Schirling, Vice President, Senior Regional Program Officer, M&T Charitable Foundation. “This program is an important part of learning for our Vermont youth. Not everyone learns in the same way, and this program provides an opportunity that is not a standardization of education but personalizing and customizing an approach for each student.”
In 2025, students from Middlebury Union High School and the Addison Central Program are building a 25’ Whitehall-style rowing gig in the Museum’s boat shop. As part of this educational experience at the Museum, these student boat builders also get introductions to blacksmithing, boat restoration, metal casting, fishing, watershed ecology, and archaeology. In addition, students from nine local high school and middle school teams will participate in the spring and fall youth open-water rowing seasons with weekly practices and several race events around the state and New England.
“Champlain Longboats gives teens the opportunity to learn new things, and to excel in ways they might not be able to in a traditional classroom. Whether in the Boat Shop building a wooden boat with their peers, or rowing with their team on Lake Champlain, they experience success.” said Chris Sabick, Executive Director, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. “Through this program, they get to make their own unique connection to Lake Champlain and its history.”
If you’re interested in this year’s boat building project, you can follow the boat building updates and youth rowing season online and join public events to cheer students on – we will post regular updates here on the blog as well as on Facebook and Instagram.