Waterside Workshop

By Kevin Callahan
Kcallahan@urbanpromiseusa.org

Helder Parreira, the boat shop director and co-founder of Waterside Workshops in Berkeley, California, offers historical and holistic advice during these trying economic times.

“We don’t follow the grant money, we follow our mission,” Parreira said recently. “If you follow your mission, the grant money will come.”

Over the last two decades, the grant money has followed Waterside Workshops, which has engaged youth in the Bay Area – and the community – through wooden boatbuilding as well as bicycle mechanics and outdoor education.

“We were always doing the outdoor trips with our kids and then grant money became available and we tapped into it,” Parreira explained on how he followed his own strategy, which is now his advice to non-profits, to grow the adventure program.

Parreira, who packs vast knowledge of maritime history and anthropology in his tool belt, founded Waterside’s boat program in 2007.

Waterside not only rejuvenated the Berkeley Aquatic Park, but soon spurned an environment of craftsmanship, youth development and eventually community enrichment.

“When I first started up 20 years ago, it seemed like only a handful of guys were doing this,” Parreira said about teaching youth wooden boat building. “I naively thought I was only one and then found out about Alexandra Seaport (Virginia) and the guys in Milwaukee (All Hands Boatworks) an then now with the national convention (Teaching With Small Boats Alliance), there are like 80 organizations, and that is cool and now popular and that is how TWSBA integrated into my work.

“TWSBA helped with student counseling as the guys who were doing this longer than me had ideas on this and it helped me.’’

Each year, over 300 youth (between 8-24 years-old) participate in Waterside’s workshops, job-training internships, classes and partnership programs. In the boat shop, youth work alongside skilled instructors to learn carpentry and traditional wooden boat building.

Waterside, which is equipped to construct or repair any type of wooden boat up to 20 feet in length, also builds Adirondack chairs, outdoor furniture cutting boards and wooden toys for purchase.

Waterside offers a community bike shop in addition to the wooden boat shop.

“Our organization is unique because we started as boat shop and bike maintenance,” explained Parreira, who “pretty much just manages the boat shop now.”

 “We do bike, boats and outdoor camping trips,” he added, “I like that kids can come here and do a lot and there is something for everyone.”

A boat rental facility allows paddling and sailing at the Berkeley Aquatic Park and in the San Francisco Bay. Youth interns and staff also provide boat rentals to the general public and help conduct field trips for groups of youth from partner organizations.

The Adventures program takes youth on hiking and camping trips.

“We take kids out on boating and camping trips at least once a month, sometimes twice and it started with me and another staff member on weekends,” Parreira said. “And now we have about 15 staff and about one-third are youth who went through our programs.”

This exemplary slow and smart growth at Waterside continues as Parreira is excited that they will reopen the café, which shutdown from COVID. And renovations will be made to the outside kitchen. And they are turning a storage unit into another boat shop since they hit capacity, so Parreira is hiring staff.’’

“We’ve purposely always kept things small,” Parreira said. “and only when we are just bursting out at the seams do we make a push here and there for expansion, we’d acquire another building or another staff member, and now a building we’ve always had used for storage is now going to be used for programing.”

“Grow when you can,” Parreira stressed. “You have to be honest what you can take on and not because you want to.”

Part of the growth in the boat shop has included a recent build of a Hawaiian canoe, Wa’a Hanai, which was launched at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, where they paddled around the Hyde Street Pier inner harbor.

“I’ve spent years trying to find the perfect boat to do this and only recently, in the last five years, I found the double canoe to do this,” Parreira said. “What I love about the Hawaiian canoe, you can beach it and paddle it, it is very safe and you can sail her too.”

With all his experience, Parreira easily recognizes the timing when to grow the programs.

“Our programming has always grown with our kids,” Parreira said. “We fixed up building wit the kids, we do our own electrical work and the kids learn, so instead of doing a capital gains push, it is a very holistic evolution.

“That has kept us small, but has become greater teaching tool, and greater intimacy with our space instead of hiring contractors to do it all.”

Like the perfection of the Hawaiian canoe, Parreira’s perfect plan is to keep going and growing.

“One of the goals of all this is what we are giving to the next generation, if just not for me or my generation, that would be dead on the water,” Parreira continued. “I can’t do this forever, I need to find a 20-year-old to pick it up and keep it going. I love it and want to pass it on to the next generation, other that it that will be in books, but it has to be in hands.’