Cross Currents Minority Rowing

Cross Currents is the premier resource and example of a collective, minority-led response that addresses the need to diversify the sport of rowing and water-related activities on the waterways of the Genesee Region.

Cross Currents will be recognized as the world class national community model for exemplifying a high performance minority rowing program.

Our mission is to diversify the sport of rowing and create opportunities for people of color to experience water sports, but our doors are open to everyone. For those who are not an ethnic minority but would like to be a vital and vibrant part of our cause, become a Friend of Cross Currents.

• To evangelize and exemplify diversity and inclusion
• To address the challenges, barriers and opportunities and implement strategic inclusion initiatives
• To foster awareness
• To increase access and participation
• To be a collective on-the-water racing presence
• To be a resource for information, recruitment, referral, training, financial support, placement and retention
• To provide strategies to achieve optimum health & fitness
• To ensure that sustainable systems and structures are in place that foster inclusion throughout our rowing community

• Respect
• Excellence
• Education
• Diversity
• Commitment
• Reliability
• Safety
• Team Work

In June, 2006, Cross Currents Minority Rowing was successfully launched to provide minority residents with the opportunity to participate in water-related activities, focused on rowing located in Rochester, New York. Rochester has an active and growing rowing community and this first-of-its-kind program in upstate New York, and quite possibly New York State, provides minorities with the equipment, resources and training to fully participate in this non-traditional, under-represented sport.

Cross Currents Minority Rowing and the formation of adult rowing teams, has provided a viable year-round model that promotes and engages minority youth, young adults (collegiate and post collegiate), and mature adults in the greater Rochester area. With an overall goal of fostering awareness and increasing involvement, participants representing a cross section of professions, ethnic and economic backgrounds, have received training, are in the process of receiving training, or are active in other productive ways. Fitness, nutrition, and overall health fundamentals are incorporated into the training program.

Primarily managed by volunteers, Cross Currents seeks to expand its program, improve existing facilities and equipment inventory, increase youth participation, and ensure access to the sport of rowing and water-related activities in general. Efforts are under way to recruit, mentor, transport, train and consistently engage urban youth in water-related activities, and ultimately to prepare a city-wide team for participation in racing. In 2010, Cross Currents Minority Rowing was endorsed by US Rowing's Diversity and Inclusion Initiative as America Rows Rochester, and is training to participate in the Head of the Charles as the first collective minority entrants in this prestigious race. Donations are needed to make this quest a reality.