Hands-On Education

Help Save Living Classrooms' Flagship Lady Maryland!

We Need Your Support! Please make a donation online today.

Lady Maryland Benefit Dinner March 12, 2012 - click here for tickets and information

Support the ship restoration by joining the Lady Maryland Club!

Click here and Like our Shipboard page to follow Lady Maryland's restoration progress on Facebook!

Educational Vessel and Treasured Chesapeake Bay Icon, Lady Maryland, to Undergo Major Repairs over Winter Months – Community Support is Needed to Help Keep Ship Afloat

Baltimore, MD – Living Classrooms Foundation’s flagship and first “living classroom,” pungy schooner Lady Maryland, went into dry dock for the winter on November 15. After 25 years of providing hands-on educational shipboard programming to over 250,000 students of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, the vessel is being hauled out for extensive repairs.  The estimated cost for her repairs is $180,000 and a major fundraising campaign is currently underway to keep the ship afloat.  Lady Maryland will be dry-docked at Living Classrooms’ Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park campus located at 1417 Thames Street in Fells Point.

Since her construction by shipwrights and students in 1986, Lady Maryland has sailed with over 250,000 youth from throughout the State of Maryland, the country, and internationally.  Each season, from April through November, she introduces students to the ecological, cultural and economic importance of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean as she runs educational and sail-training programs.  While on board the ship, students become crew and scientists for the voyage, steering, navigating, handling sails and conducting scientific sampling of water and marine life.  The ship and the hands-on nature of her lessons are the basis of the program’s science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum.

Throughout the history of Living Classrooms Foundation, Lady Maryland has been the most versatile “living classroom.”  For example, she serves students as young as 2nd grade to Masters level graduates, as well as teachers participating in professional development activities and families learning together.  For 25 years she has also served as an effective platform for engaging at-risk and adjudicated youth participating in Living Classrooms’ workforce development programs, many of whom have never been sailing or exposed to the Chesapeake Bay firsthand. Moreover, Lady Maryland is a resource to schools by supporting cross-curricular Maryland and national academic outcomes.  Living Classrooms also uses the tall ship to provide a meaningful Chesapeake Bay experience required for schools, and provides a unique hands-on opportunity for students to learn about the Chesapeake Bay and environment, and develop a sense of stewardship.  Lady Maryland has been a tremendous and successful learning resource to schools as she has become an integral part of several schools’ curricula for 25 years.

Now, Lady Maryland is facing a major restoration and Living Classrooms Foundation is calling on the support of the community to help keep this critical learning vessel afloat.  Scheduled repairs include replacing the stem, refastening the vessel and re-caulking the vessel.  Donated goods and services, and tax-deductible contributions are needed to help offset the costs of this refit. The shipyard at the Maritime Park will be open for public viewing throughout the restoration project.

 

About Living Classrooms Foundation and Lady Maryland:

Living Classrooms Foundation is a Baltimore-Washington based nonprofit organization that strengthens communities and inspires young people to achieve their potential through hands-on education, job training, and community service programs, using urban, natural, and maritime settings as “living classrooms.” The Foundation has been serving the community for over twenty-five years.

Lady Maryland was built by Living Classrooms Foundation in 1986 as a hands-on educational project involving 100 students, which would serve to connect inner-city students to the history and natural resources of the Chesapeake Bay.

Lady Maryland is a Chesapeake Bay pungy schooner, a boat which sailed the Bay in the 1800's. She is the first to sail on the Bay since the 1950s, and the only one in existence today. Pungies, which were considered fast sailing vessels in the 1800s, were primarily used as workboats which carried perishable cargo such as oysters, watermelons, tomatoes, fish, peaches, and grain.  Today, Lady Maryland is a part of Living Classrooms Foundation's educational fleet and a valued asset to schools, the community, and the environment as the Chesapeake Bay’s premiere educational and sail-training tall ship.

For media or sponsorship information, please contact Thara Taylor.

Lady Maryland Club

Make a contribution to support the ship's restoration in the amount of $1195 and become a member of the newly created "Lady Maryland Club." An annual membership includes:

  • Sunset sail in the spring or in the fall
  • A dockside reception for all members at the Douglass-Myers Maritime Park
  • Your name listed on a "Save Lady Maryland" plaque mounted onboard the ship and on a plaque in the Douglass-Myers Maritime Park
  • Two tickets to Living Classrooms' fall benefit party "Maritime Magic"

Call Kara at 410.685.0295 for more information.