Shake-A-Leg Miami is a not-for-profit
working with children & adults with physical, developmental and
economic challenges in a marine environment, utilizing Biscayne Bay to
teach environmental lessons, therapeutic sailing, swimming &
kayaking.
Shake A Leg Miami is a 501 (c) 3
organization that has worked in partnership with the City of Miami for
the past 20 years and developed South Florida’s Premiere Community
boating Center, serving 8,000 people annually, with 3,000 being youth
and people with disabilities. Located on Miami’s beautiful Biscayne Bay,
facilities include a marina with a variety of boats, boatyard and boat
repair area, multipurpose classrooms with computers, a multimedia lab,
rooftop observation deck, and eco islands. Programs and activities are
offered seven days a week year round.
Shake A Leg’s Mission is to use the marine environment to improve
health, education and independence of people with disabilities,
disadvantaged youth and their families.
Shake A Leg’s Vision: To become a global destination for people with disabilities and their families.
Need: Children and adults with
disabilities and their families need a place where they can recreate
together, have fun, learn and grow in a fully inclusive environment.
Children with disabilities have the same needs for leisure, friendship,
and social participation as their non-disabled peers. However, they are
much less likely to actively partake in organized leisure activities and
are less likely to engage with peers outside of school. Furthermore,
these children are significantly less physically active and are thus at
increased risk for various health issues associated with a sedentary
lifestyle.
Benefits to Participants…Improving Lives.
- Students attending programs held during school, after school and
summer improve their academic performance, self-esteem and providing
healthy life-long activities. 70% of general participants and 79% of
students with disabilities improved reading skills. 65% of general
participants and students with disabilities improved in math scores. 93%
of all participants improved in basic science knowledge. - The Community Watersports Center provides a universally accessible
place for people with disabilities to gather with able bodied peers and
family to socialize, learn, recreate and have fun. - Community Service opportunities are available for people to
volunteer. Through the act of giving, people are helping others help
themselves. The rewards are priceless and the community benefits as a
whole. - Provides the public with a unique
meeting place and a “Gateway to the Bay”. The community interaction
between able and disabled people helps create an environment of
inclusion and understanding which benefits all involved. This
environment enables Shake A Leg Miami to attract and train people to
become volunteers for the programs and generate revenues from general
public programs.
Shake A Leg Miami Major Accomplishments:
- Provide an accessible place to people
with disabilities. Shake A Leg Miami is Miami-Dade County’s premiere
community boating center serving people with disabilities and their
families and attract thousands of people each year creating a vibrant
environment where socialization, learning and fun take place. - Converted a historic US Coast Guard
Seaplane Base and City of Miami Park into a universally accessible
community boating center (a $6,500,000 capital improvement), creating
Miami’s “Gateway to the Bay and Beyond”. Shake A Leg Miami has set a
world standard for adaptive sailing/boating and community integration. - Generate funds through private contributions and grants to fund annual operations, capital improvements and program development.
Philanthropy and grants fund 80% of the budget. - Established partnership and alliances
with leading service organization and schools unique and effective
programs, reach our target population. These partnerships will provide
base for growth.
Shake A Leg Miami’s History
Shake-A-Leg has its origins in Newport,
Rhode Island, when 22-year-old Harry Horgan was paralyzed resulting from
an automobile accident. Dissatisfied with then available programs to
help disabled people to engage in their mental and physical recovery,
Harry decided to “shake-a-leg” {pun intended} and create, from scratch, a
place where people of all abilities could break down previously
impervious barriers.
The sailing program that Harry
established soon became known nationally. In 1990, Dr. Barth Green,
Chief of Neurosurgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital and a co-founder of
the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, recruited Harry to start a
year-round program in Miami. Shake-A-Leg soon made its mark and today
works in partnership with the City of Miami; Miami-Dade County Public
Schools; and a host of community organizations, federal, state and local
agencies; foundations, and private philanthropists to serve people with
disabilities, disadvantaged children and their families and the entire
community.
Shake A Leg Miami has adopted the idea
of Project Baseline and together with the Project Baseline Gulfstream
chapter a couple of initial monitoring stations have been set up. The
stations will be monitored by anybody who would dive at these locations
and who would share with their findings, images and possibly video
footage. Members from Project Baseline Gulfstream might even frequent
from time to time also, but it is intended that these stations will to
great extent be monitored by the Shake A Leg Miami Science Projects.
Over time, more monitoring stations may well be added, possibly further
out in the bay area.
“It’s an important location to
include in our monitoring efforts and we are grateful to have Shake A
Leg Miami actively taking part of these undertakings. Their support will
be very valuable to the Project Baseline initiative”, commented Mikkel Pitzner from Project Baseline Gulfstream.
Harry Horgan amongst many students of Shake A Leg Miami
We at Project Baseline Gulfstream are
excited about this collaboration and grateful of the support and
monitoring that Shake A Leg Miami will carry out. These updates and
reports along with any images and video footage will be valuable and
will be part of all the data that Project Baseline Gulfstream is
collecting and making freely available to all via their website.
We also hope that the project might be
of value to Shake A Leg Miami’s curriculum and activities on offer for a
great variety of young people.