The Big Picture: Rides That Make Shore Dreams Happen
Does it even matter that once a year, a bunch of go-fast boat owners in New Jersey take kids in need for a ride on Barnegat Bay? You bet it does.
Chances are, getting into your boat doesn’t provide a major challenge for you. You don’t even think about it. You hop over the gunwales with gazelle-like grace—or at least think you do—and move deliberately toward the helm station. But what if it weren’t so easy? What if it took four people to lift you from your wheelchair into the boat? What if you couldn’t see the horizon as you raced toward it, or hear the slap of water on the hull as it cut through the chop? What if all your senses were intact but mental illness prevented you from fully understanding where you were or what you were doing?
Just a portion of the 35-boat fleet that took kids for rides in 2008
Would a boat ride still be worth it?
For the people who run Shore Dreams for Kids and about 200 of their closest friends, the answer is a resounding yes. The annual event, which happens this year on Saturday, July 18, in Seaside Heights, N.J., provides a day of powerboat rides on Barnegat Bay, food and drink, and even a carnival with rides, games and a clown for up to 700 physically and mentally children, as well as seriously ill children, and their families.
Up to 700 kids like this girl are expected for this year's event.
The event actually started 19 years ago and was called Day on the Bay. Nine years ago, the original founders moved on and the event, with a healthy push from the New Jersey Performance Powerboat Club, became Shore Dreams for Kids. Board members Geralyn Monroe, Pete Mazzo, Brian Meade, Robert Cline and Dave Patanaude, president of the NJPPC, have since built what started as a local happening into the most significant charitable event in the high-performance boating world.
Everyone gets into the act, because—go figure—charity is a big thing in the New Jersey high-performance boat community. The New Jersey Elks Club runs the carnival and all the games. The local Shop-Rite supermarket provides all the food. The Seaside Heights Police Department provides traffic control so the kids can be escorted across the street to the docks, where five teams of volunteers work from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to get them into life vests and safely onto and out of the boats. And of course, there are the 35 boats with 35 drivers and volunteer crews—who take the kids for rides.
But it’s more than just a day of rides for kids from the Special Olympics, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Arcs of Love, Children’s Hospital and other organizations that serve children who, frankly, could just use a break—maybe the only one they’ll ever get. It also gives their families a break, if for just one day.
Volunteers at Shore Dreams help one youngster climb aboard for a ride.
“For a lot of these families, this is the only chance they’ll have for a vacation or getaway at the Jersey Shore,” says Monroe. “We don’t charge them at all. Shore Dreams for Kids is a non-profit organization that raises money specifically for this one day.”
Despite all the donated food and volunteer labor—the boat drivers pay for their own fuel, too—the Shore Dreams for Kids event still requires funding to the tune of approximately $20,000 a year. A good chunk of that money, approximately $12,000 this year, comes from auctions at the NJPPC events such as the Atlantic City Poker Run. The rest comes from individual donations.
“We have one donor who pays for the ice cream service,” says Monroe. “He says, ‘I’ll take care of that every year.’
“We’re hoping to keep that going,” she adds. “He sold his business, though he is bringing the new owner to this year’s event.”
Mike Fiore (red shirt, gray sleeves), founder of Outerlimits Powerboats, waits dockside to pick up passengers.
“The money comes in,” says Mazzo. “We have all the boats we need, and we have all the money we need for this year. That’s really remarkable in a down market like this. We’re looking at having 650 to 700 kids this year.”
Though Shore Dreams for Kids is primarily for children, it manages to serve a few adults each year.
“There was this older gentleman named Billy, and I think he was like 70, legally blind and mentally handicapped, and he lived in a group home,” says Patanaude. “One year, I walked Billy over for his boat ride and helped him get into the boat. He came back the following year and heard my voice from down the dock. He said, ‘Dave, is that you?’
“So, 365 days later, Billy remembered my voice,” he adds. “That’s pretty amazing, but that’s the kind of thing that happens with Shore Dreams.”
Editor’s Note: Bi-weekly columnist Matt Trulio is the editor at large for Powerboat magazine. He has written about boats and boating for more than 14 years.
