Waves of Support
Your support empowers students with a love of learning through ocean-based experiential programs that serve schools, teachers, and families.
25 Years of NESS Campaign
For 25 years, NESS has empowered students through hands-on sailing and marine science. These experiences build confidence, spark curiosity, and transform how students see themselves and the world around them—opportunities made possible through the support of our community.
This milestone is more than a celebration—it’s a call to ensure even more students can access these life-changing experiences. With your support, NESS can expand access to ocean-based education, strengthen hands-on programs led by passionate educators, and provide scholarships that remove financial barriers so every student—regardless of background or ability—can experience the transformational power of learning on the water.
Your generosity helps ensure that every student can be inspired, empowered, and transformed as they discover their potential when the ocean becomes their classroom.
Student success is powered by the generosity of our donors and community partners.
Annual Fund
Sustains our student-first mission by providing the essential funding needed for immediate program, operational, and student support.
Grants
Fuels student-centered innovation and growth through targeted funding for specific projects and specialized programs.
Scholarships
Opens doors and transforms lives by providing the direct financial support needed to ensure equitable access for every student.
Strategic Partnerships
Amplifies our mission through collaborative initiatives that create lasting impact and a stronger community together.
2026 NESS Annual Benefit
Delivering Possibility
Twenty-five years ago, NESS was founded on a simple belief: every student deserves the opportunity to discover what they're capable of.
This year, we’re celebrating just how far that belief has taken us and the thousands of students who have learned, explored, taken risks, built confidence, and discovered something new about themselves along the way.
Our 25 Years of NESS Annual Benefit, Delivering Possibility, celebrates everything a NESS experience can set in motion. A day on the water can become so much more: the courage to try something new, the resilience to keep going, a sense of belonging, a spark of curiosity, or the confidence to lead. What begins at NESS stays with students long after they leave our docks.
Throughout the evening, we invite you to experience NESS through the eyes of our students. Step into our interactive Experience Labs, hear stories from students and alumni, and take part in mission moments that bring the heart of NESS to life. You’ll see firsthand how the moments that happen here—big and small—can shape where a student goes next.
And, of course, this milestone wouldn’t be complete without the community that has made it all possible. Together, we’ll celebrate 25 incredible years, Raise the Sail for what comes next, and help ensure even more students have the chance to experience all that NESS has to offer.
Many people are surprised to learn that most of NESS’s resources are devoted to bringing its innovative educational programs to underserved students.
NESS’s STEM programs encourage children to learn while having fun. Studies show that experiential learning helps all children learn by connecting the subjects they study in school to the real world. But experiential learning is not always available on an equal basis. NESS provides opportunities to students who might not otherwise have access to it.
Our programs also introduce students to college and career opportunities in STEM fields that they might never have imagined before participating in NESS. NESS not only helps to improve academic skills, it also imparts life skills like perseverance, communication, teamwork, communication, and self-control. We take children out of their comfort zones and encourage them to be innovative and self-reliant.
The schools that work with NESS enthusiastically support NESS’s programs. But many schools cannot afford the cost of such programs. To assure those experiential learning opportunities are available to all children, regardless of means, NESS makes up the difference through fundraising and grants.
By contributing to NESS, you give children, especially underserved students, the opportunity to succeed in academics and in life.
- - A student who wonders why he needs to learn to calculate the area of a triangle suddenly gets it when the triangle is his wind-harnessing sail.
- - A student who has been told that environmental conservation is a good thing gets it when he observes first-hand the man-made debris clogging the salt marsh he is kayaking through while collecting marine biology samples.
- - Buoyancy and propulsion become important and fun subjects when you are operating your own remote-controlled submersible.
With NESS programs, students explore, discover, design, engineer, and investigate their world. They learn it by doing it.
NESS works with community schools both inside the schools and at its own waterside facilities.
We design our programs with the teachers so that the programs complement (or expand on or demonstrate) what is being taught in their classrooms at the same time. Our educators go into the schools to give practical demonstrations of the relevance of academic subjects, and students come to our facilities for experiential learning in our “classroom without walls”.
Our curriculum is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and Ocean Literacy Principles and, when combined with ocean adventure activities, delivers a powerful and effective learning model.
Many of the schools and school districts that NESS serves have very high percentages of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — in some cases, so high that the entire school qualifies.
These schools are often plagued by low attendance and chronic absenteeism. Such conditions have been shown to have profoundly negative consequences on students’ emotional and cognitive development. The challenge is enormous – for the schools and for NESS, and most importantly, for the students themselves.
NESS hopes and believes that its efforts help these children rise to the challenge, armed with life skills that prepare them for college and STEM careers, and lifetime stewards of their community and natural environment.
NESS employs a talented staff of educators who develop and implement its numerous STEM programs. People are NESS’s greatest strength and its highest cost.
To support our professionals and deliver the best educational experience, NESS needs microscopes, iPads, watercraft, fully-equipped marine biology labs, safety equipment, classrooms, fuel, insurance, and much more. There is a reason why some underserved school districts don’t offer these experiential learning opportunities themselves – they simply cannot afford to. That’s where NESS, with help from people like you, comes in.
“For the past 12 summers, NESS has been the highlight of Raymond’s year. Thanks to the incredible staff, we’ve watched our son grow in confidence, resiliency, and a true love of learning, not to mention the pure joy he feels every time he’s on the water.
We choose to support NESS so that other children can share in that same sense of wonder, growth, and possibility. Empowering more kids to experience what Raymond has is the greatest gift we can give.”
- Courtney & Brad, NESS Family
