INSPIRE EDUCATE ACTIVATE 2012 ANNUAL REPORT Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. 724 Wolcott Avenue, Beacon, NY 12508 P: 845-265-8080 | F: 845-831-2821 [email protected] | www.clearwater.org 2012 CLEARWATER ANNUAL REPORT is published by Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. To receive a copy, please visit www.clearwater.org. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be published without permission. Cover Photo Credits: Clearwater Staff Designer: Raven + Crow Studio, ravenandcrowstudio.com 3 CLEARWATER.ORG Inspiring, educating, and activating the next generation of environmental leaders. 1 TABLE OF A Home for the Sloop Clearwater Our Mission Where We Work Inspire Educate Sail Program Statistics Activate 2012 Financials Thank you Contributors The Seeger Society Memorials and In Honor Of Gifts in Kind Matching Gifts Volunteers Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival Performers Kingston Home Port and Education Center Board of Directors Staff “If you want people to care about the river, you have to teach them about the river.” – Pete Seeger Hudson RiveR sloop CleaRwateR, inC. • 2012 annual RepoRt 2 A HOME FOR THE SLOOP We are very excited to see the Kingston Home Port and Education Center finally become a reality and satisfy a 40-year dream to have a permanent, protected, dedicated port and repair shop for our beloved sloop Clearwater. Funded in large part by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and located on the Rondout Creek in Kingston, NY, our new jointly-operated building is nestled next to the tugboat Mathilda and only steps away from the valley’s Hudson River Maritime Museum. The new Kingston Home Port and Education Center will be a new center for maritime history, boat building and repair, education, and community gatherings. With Clearwater and Hudson River Maritime Museum’s partnership, we are rooted in the historic past and working with a vision for a sustainable future. Together with the City of Kingston and the State of New York, along with thousands of wonderful grassroots supporters, we have built something great together. This Hudson River port will drive tourism, promote the maritime heritage and shipbuilding trade, and help revitalize Kingston – a world class port in the 19th and early 20th century – to its own renewed glory. The Home Port will be the place where the sloop resides over the winters and where major and minor restoration efforts can take place. Education programs through Clearwater and the Hudson River Maritime Museum will be created and taught out of the building while utilizing the sloop when docked and the museum facilities. It will be a place where our youth will be taught the tradition of cause music through our Power of Song program and carry on the legacy of Pete Seeger – to inspire people through song to take action for the environment. World-class music paired with maritime history and celebrations of tall ships will all make Kingston a major Hudson River destination for the Hudson Valley. KINGSTON HOME PORT & EDUCATION CENTER, KINGSTON, NY Read more about the Kingston Home Port Barn Raising on page 6. CLEARWATER.ORG 3 OUR Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is a member-supported nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and protect the Hudson River. As an organization, Clearwater works to provide innovative environmental programs, advocacy, and celebrations designed to inspire, educate and activate the next generation of environmental leaders. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater’s longtime strategy of inspiring, educating, and activating people is a powerful formula for success. Utilizing the greatest natural resource in the region – the Hudson River – Clearwater has become the grassroots model for change to protect our planet. Clearwater’s efforts to defend and restore the Hudson River depend on the support of its members. When you join Clearwater, you are part of a great community of members and volunteers who are working for a better future and believe that individuals can make a difference in bringing about a cleaner, greener, safer world. Pete Seeger, Clearwater founder Photo by Econosmith.com BE A PART OF A LITTLE ORGANIZATION THAt’s MAKING A Photo by Randall Wolf CLEARWATER.ORG Hudson RiveR sloop CleaRwateR, inC. • 2012 annual RepoRt 4 WHERE WE RENSSELAER ALBANY Rensselaer Castleton Coxsackie COLUMBIA MASSACHUSETTS GREENE Athens Hudson Catskill Saugerties Esopus Creek We sail the Hudson River, Albany to Kingston New York City, during our April – Rondout Creek October sailing season. DUTCHESS Fall Kill Creek ULSTER Through our Green Cities Initiative, we work year round to protect the Poughkeepsie watersheds and tributaries of our Hudson River communities. Newburgh Beacon PUTNAM Cold Spring CONNECTICUT ORANGE West Point Peekskill Verplanck Haverstraw WESTCHESTER ROCKLAND NEW YORK NEW JERSEY Piermont Yonker s Alpine BRONX Oyster Bay QUEENS MANHATTANNYC/79th St. LONG ISLAND Brooklyn/Red Hook CLEARWATER.ORG 5 2ND ANNUAL EARTH DAY CONCERT: A TRIBUTE TO WOODY GUTHRIE Clearwater presented its 2nd Earth Day Benefit Concert in cel- ebration of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday on April 22 at the Tarrytown Music Hall in Westchester, NY. This was a very spe- cial evening featuring Janis Ian, Tom Paxton, The Klezmatics, Tom Chapin, Toshi Reagon, David Amram, Lucy Kaplansky, Garland Jeffreys, Cheryl Wheeler, and more. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were close friends and musical collaborators who first met in New York at a benefit supporting California farm workers. Pete and Woody, along with Leadbelly, Burl Ives, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Josh White and others founded The Alamanc Singers in 1940, one of the first major folk music groups to organize and popularize protest music. Members of this group, including Pete, went on to found The Weavers, pop- ularizing many of Woody’s songs. During the McCarthy Era of the 1940’s and early 1950’s, Pete, Woody, and many other artists were blacklisted. Ultimately, Pete and Woody have inspired generations of musicians including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Judy Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Ben Harper, Billy Bragg, Jeff Tweedy, and many more. All artists performed selected Woody Guthrie songs, as well as their own and it was a night to remember. INSPIRE 2nd Annual Earth Day Concert Home Port Barn Raising Photos by Econosmith.com Photo by Randall Wolf CLEARWATER.ORG Hudson RiveR sloop CleaRwateR, inC. • 2012 annual RepoRt 6 will also host a variety community programs, musical events, and workshops throughout the year. POWER OF SONG AwARD: DAVID AMRAM NOVEMBER 9, 2012 “Had the election gone the other way,” said Peter Yarrow, formerly of Peter Paul and Mary, the evening would’ve felt very different. As it was, the November 9 benefit concert at New York City’s Symphony Space was a quirky, gloriously whacked, tribal reunion of nearly every lefty folksinger you ever admired. A highlight of the evening was when Pete Seeger came out on stage alone and sang “Turn Turn Home Port Construction Turn.” He included five verses written by his wife, Toshi, Photo by Julia Church in 1954 that were never performed in public. Each one HOME PORT: was wittier than the last, and themed on the clear-eyed BARN RAISING SEPTEMBER 15, 2012 assessments of the ups and downs of parenthood. Of On September 15, a daylong construction took place on course, he had the whole audience singing together. Rondout Creek in Kingston, NY involving a crew of ap- proximately 60 dedicated souls and a crane working to- The evening’s honoree for gether to assemble the timber frame parts of what would Clearwater’s Power of Song Award was David Amram, become the new home port for the sloop Clearwater. the classical/jazz/composer/ Hundreds of people gathered from all walks of life to lend French hornist who has their support for the new facility and for the revitalization crossed multiple musical of the Kingston waterfront. By sunset the timber frame borders than anybody knew existed when he first started was complete and Pete Seeger took a moment with the David Amram youth in attendance to inaugurate the new building with in the 1950s, from the atonal Photo by Econosmith.com a very touching rendition of “If I had a Hammer.” harpsichord score he wrote for the creepiest moments of The Manchurian Candidate Many of the diverse groups who have supported this (the 1959 original) to his 2009 Piano Concerto that project from its inception Hudson River Maritime lyrically distills everything he’s ever been. The evening Museum, Clearwater, and Kingston Community were began with the premiere of the Lawrence Kraman film, present for the raising of the building and assisted in the David Amram: The First 80 Years and was, from start to construction process. In the upcoming years, a wonderful finish, a true tribute to an incredible artist. collaboration between the Hudson River Maritime Museum and Clearwater is set to evolve. The two groups have agreed to share the new facility, with the Museum being the primary occupant during the summer, and Clearwater being the primary occupant during the winter when the annual sloop repairs will begin in the new woodshop housed within the building. The sloop repair work involves working with enormous pieces of wood to replace parts of the sloop that have disintegrated over time. Small scale wood boat building will also be a primary use of the building in an effort to create river access for Kingston youth. The new facility, in Power of Song Award Concert addition to being a woodshop and boat building center, Photo by Julia Church CLEARWATER.ORG 7 Caption EDUCATE RIVER CITIES INITIAtive – help schools and organizations by providing financial and EXTENDING THE IMPACT other assistance to states, which are bolstering environ- It’s getting harder and harder for teachers and school ad- mental learning.