This article is from the fall 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Valeria Longa
The NextGen Baykeepers kayaking after-school program launched at Dog River Park in March 2025 with local youth from the Harmon-Thomas Community Center. Fifteen kids in grades 4th through 6th learned how to confidently kayak and explore their backyard via its waterways. Mobile Baykeeper created the NextGen Baykeepers program to provide meaningful experiences on our waterways to foster the next generation of environmental stewards.
Now more than ever, youth are spending less time outside, and this not only distances their relationship with nature, it also negatively impacts their mental and physical health. Kids need more opportunities to safely enjoy the outdoors, and this program is making that happen. The heart of the NextGen program aligns with the following statement by renowned educator David Sobel: “If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.” Providing outdoor adventures through kayaking can build a love of the water that will last a lifetime.
The program is six weeks long and takes place Monday through Friday for two hours a day. This allows time to build mentorship with the students and for them to become confident paddlers. The NextGen Baykeepers program immerses youth in the flora and fauna of the Dog River ecosystem. During the spring 2025 session, students engaged in all kinds of water activities, like using dip nets to collect fiddler crabs and fish (Bay Anchovy, Threadfin Shad, Inland Silverside) in terrariums. They were shouting with enthusiasm as they caught different animals, and some shed tears when they had to let the wildlife go at the end of the day. Discovering a bask of six- to seven-foot alligator garfish splashing in the waters also proved to be a favorite activity. There were a couple of times when they did not want the kayaking to end, so they could continue the search for more gar.
This program is designed to meet the needs of our community, which is why we adopted the community-based partnership model. Mobile Baykeeper partnered with the City of Mobile’s Parks and Recreation Department to utilize parks with waterway access and serve Mobile-area youth that attend after-school recreation centers. Additional partners include the Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama, Mobile Museum of Art, and Lifelines Counseling Service. Mobile Museum of Art provides weekly art and nature classes for the NextGen students; Lifelines Counseling Service supports their social, emotional learning; and the Boys and Girls Club is slated to work with kids in future program sessions.
Leslie Pettaway, manager of the Harmon-Thomas Community Center, recognized the benefits a program like this could offer. “I wanted to get involved because I’ve heard about Baykeeper and the environmental education they do,” she says. “I felt like it would be a great experience for our children to gain knowledge about the environment and how important it is to keep it safe and clean.”
Pettaway even kayaked with the kids despite having never done it before. “I’ve always had a fear of deep water, but I got over that fear when I kayaked for the first time,” Pettaway says. “It brought a peace and a calm.” She went on to explain, “This program has impacted staff, myself, and the work we do by incorporating more diverse opportunities and encouraging our children to experience more than just the basics in life, to branch out and learn all they can outside of the usual routine.”
NextGen Baykeepers will offer four sessions in the 2025-2026 academic year and reach 60 kids. Through the program, these youth are given the foundation to become environmental leaders. A value instilled in the NextGen kids is that the health of the water is everyone’s responsibility, and we envision all of coastal Alabama coming together around this unifying principle.
Valerie Longa is the education director at Mobile Baykeeper.
