American Whitewater is pleased to announce that we are launching a new Northeast Regional Stewardship Program. The creation of the new program is made possible by a generous $50,000 gift, given in memory of Boyce Greer. The contribution will be used as seed-money and paired with additional support from the regional paddling community to hire a part-time Northeast Stewardship Director position. The new regional director will work closely with paddlers and partner organizations to carry out American Whitewater’s stewardship mission of river conservation, restoration, safety and enjoyment on rivers throughout the region.

American Whitewater’s history of river advocacy in the northeast dates back over 50 years.  It was 25 years ago when regional AW board members began restoring flows to rivers impacted by dams using the hydropower dam relicensing process.  This creative strategy has since led to the restoration of thousands of miles of rivers across the Country.

Since 2005 American Whitewater has been organized around a regional stewardship model, and has slowly added regional programs that have proven highly successful.  We are excited to now bring this regional model to the northeast. Our model pairs a technically skilled regional staff person, backed up by a strong and experienced support staff, with local and regional volunteer paddlers and other partners. The regional staff person educates, empowers, and inspires the paddling community to act as effective environmental advocates. We have used this model to create highly successful and financially sustainable regional programs in the Pacific Northwest, California, and Colorado. We are confident that we can accomplish good things for regional rivers and river enthusiasts through establishing a Northeast Stewardship Program.

In the coming months American Whitewater will be reaching out to AW volunteers and conservation partners in the region to design the new program.  In addition we will be working with the regional paddling community to build support for the new program.