Inland Seas Education Association (ISEA) announced Monday that they smashed their year-end donation goal of $80,000 to support the growing demands of their various educational programs for youth.
Juliana Lisuk, ISEA associate director, said the organization started their educational alliance year-end donations in November, and just in time for the new year, was able to meet their collection goal. Supporters come from across the country, all with the same mission to help educate youth about protecting the Great Lakes.
“We feel very lucky to have a big supportive community,” Lisuk said. “All of our donations go directly to supporting our programs, so that includes the people who are teaching with the program and helping with materials and supplies. But really our donors help to keep the financial barrier down for the participants because we never want that to be a barrier for students coming to participate in our programs, and so we offset the cost of the programs to participants by doing fundraising.”
2023 was the year ISEA’s added the 105-foot, three-masted schooner named “Alliance” to its sailing fleet, joining its first ship, the schooner “Inland Seas.” The ship expansion highlighted the need and importance of education in protecting the Great Lakes, and was purchased to accommodate more requests from schools beyond Leelanau county, other organizations and the public.
Lisuk said that about 70% of the schools that participate in their programs receive some type of scholarship, with the overall cost to the school already reduced due to ISEA’s staff writing grants and individual donors. Over the last few years as demand for ISEAs programs have increased, so has their end of year fundraising goal.
Along with the new opportunities the second ship is bringing for students, ISEA’s is also offering shore-side watershed exploration programs beginning this spring. The new watershed programs will allow students to continue learning with ISEA’s before the busier summer season kicks into gear.
“It’s a way for us to kind of expand the time of year we can offer programming and kind of create a connection between how behaviors on land affect the water quality,” she said. “Any school can participate in our programs. We get schools from across the state of Michigan, and even like Girl Scout groups or any kind of youth groups and organizations that want to come and do our programs…” The Schooner Alliance is currently undergoing renovations to its main cabin area, which originally had four rooms, with a goal of finishing the remodeling by May. Lisuk said while they were able to utilize the ship for day trips this past summer, they had to hold off on overnight use. The new renovations to the space will hold 18 bunks for students to be able to stay on board and do multi-day trips on the ship going forward.
