Periodic update

As has been discussed, our current main focus is on fundraising in support of the purchase of a new Junior Fleet for the SLSC Sailing School. In addition to this site, we have launched a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SailSaratogaFoundation/ ) where we are currently accepting online donations. At this point, the Foundation has committed no less than $22,000 in the form of a grant to the Club to offset the purchase price. If you are considering donating towards this effort and have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us and we'd be more than happy to discuss the new fleet and our plans for the season. Other programs we are working on include:

Sailboat Donation Program
In addition to monetary contributions, the Foundation also accepts donations of sailboats. To date we have accepted donations of well over a dozen boats from both SLSC members and non-members. Some of the boats that are donated will be used by either the SLSC Sailing School or individual fleets when they are appropriate. Other donated boats are cleaned up and fixed in order to be sold to raise money for other Foundation efforts, such as supporting the new fleet of junior boats for the sailing school. There are multiple ways that you can help with this program:
     1. Donate a boat: If you have a boat that you would like to donate, please contact any Foundation board member (Mark Welcome, Greg Tkal, or Peter Hudson) to discuss. Please keep in mind that we simply can’t accept all boats that are offered to us, as we are a volunteer group and project boats that require a lot of work before they are usable or saleable are hard for us to accept. If there’s any doubt, please reach out and we’d love to take a look and discuss. The Foundation is a 501(c)3 charitable organization so we can offer a donation letter for tax purposes.
     2. Work on boats: We can always use help cleaning up and prepping donated boats for sale. We will be looking for assistance in the spring to uncover boats and get ready to try to sell them this spring.

     3. Buy a boat: We hope to have a number of boats available for sale this spring. They will all be posted to the “on the Block” section of the SLSC web site as well as this web page.

Employer Donations
A number of local companies have programs where they will donate cash to non-profits who are supported by their employees. Many of these programs are donation matching programs whereby the employer matches any donations that at employee or retiree makes to a qualified non-profit. Still others will donate cash to non-profits where their employees donate time as a volunteer. We have been fortunate to have many SLSC members donate their time to the Foundation (cleaning boats, teaching, promotion work, etc.) and also have their employers donate money to us on their behalf. Please check with your employer to see if they sponsor programs such as these.

ADK Outdoor Expo
The Foundation will be funding the booth at the Adirondack Outdoor Expo on March 17th and 18th to promote local sailing. We are always in need of sailors to help staff the booth and talk to potential sailors. This is being coordinated by Vice Commodore John Smith who can be reached at [email protected] If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out at [email protected] and thank you for your support!