Volunteer

Shipwork slows down in the winter as there is less outdoor work. Get in touch to find out about special proejcts, and we can always use help with all the other stuff below.

Internship info at Internships

Sign up for our VOLUNTEER LIST and we’ll alert you when we need help for a special event or project.

2024 projects:

• Improving the off-ship storage area The Bunker: make rolling platforms (casters under plywood) to move stuff around, Some reorganizing, paint the floor in the back half. The front half is already done.

• We can use volunteers for a whole lot more than just shipwork.  To get involved, please see the list below and email chiclet@portsidenewyork.org and describe what work you want to do (or don’t want to do), any relevant experience, and your availability to volunteer. If there is any pattern to it, that’s helpful to know (such as 2 afternoons a week, Saturdays only, for 3 weeks while I am in between jobs, looking for a regular thing to do for the next year.)

Help give TankerTours during special events: TankerTour days need 7-10 people. We station docents around the ship, and you only have to master info about that space. We train you. Being a docent leads to lots of interesting conversations.

Join our board: We seek board members.

Fundraising:

We need funding for programs and overhead, and completing our FEMA-funded Sandy Alternate Project.

1. We could use help updating our files of possible grantors to see if/how funders have changed giving due to the pandemic. After that, we could use help writing grants, and thanking donors with emails and phone calls.

2. Want to join a fundraising committee and plan events, seek donated auction items?

Comms, spreading the Word: We can always use people good at PR, social media, and community outreach to help spread our message and grow community involvement.

Admin: We can always use office support, especially if you’re willing to work a regular commitment. And if you’re skilled at communicating with the public and motivating others, you might be interested in becoming our Volunteer Coordinator.

Can you help launch our e-commerce store? We need help selecting the selling platform, designing the swag.

Creative Services:

• Create swag designs for our ecommerce store above: We have a lot of donated art about our ship and historic photos. We want to make products educational with slogans and hashtags that link to our advocacy and education work. We’ve got a sense of humor and want fun stuff too! This source of revenue is very important to us since site rules have prohibited us from having a physical museum store (and are still prohibited from other sources of revenue in all our business plans). August 2021, we were finally greenlighted to have physical on-site retail.

• Create memes and creative videos for social media about

  • fundraising

  • promo video (shoot new video and blend with archival footage)

  • fun ones describing what is maritime and PortSide’s relationship to it. We want to convey our waterfront advocacy work and policy issues in a series of fun videos, compare to how late night TV recaps the news. We’re open to using illustration, puppets, board games, whatever to help make them engaging and policy understood. Due to the process replanning out site, the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT), the public is hungry for infomation about maritime to understand it better.

• Can you create an app for our virtual museum Red Hook WaterStories?

Digital Museum/Archivist work

• For our virtual museum Red Hook WaterStories, we need need people skilled in Omeka, professional archivist software that is the backbone of the site. We can train you in using it if you commit to volunteer for a while. We want to update updating categories and tags in Omeka and relate entries. We seek people who can interview and record oral history.

• Can you put our digital archive of photos about our programs into archiving software? Are you a book conservator who can help restore two 19th century books that were flooded by Sandy and have been in the freezer since?

Ever-changing physical projects: Tired of being in front of screens? There are always physical tasks. Help purge and re-organize The Bunker storage area, paint deck furniture, run errands, photograph Red Hook retail businesses to update their listings in our virtual guide to Red Hook.

Shipwork/maintenance/restoration: It takes a lot to restore and maintain a historic ship!

We seek a marine engineer or engineers as regular advisor to recommend on purchasing and work plans.

We need people with many trade skills: welding, plumbing, painting, varnishing, carpentry, HVAC, and tile restoration. We also have a small floating dock, a jonboat and kayaks and small stuff that needs maintenance - and we can make those boats available to you if you have experience boating.

Here’s our Excel sheet of shipwork/maintenance projects. There are a few things to add, but it gives you a good idea. Short summary below in priority order:

1.     Engine restoration - there will be work swinging wrenches and rigging to lift and move engine parts, just not yet! August 2020, we received a “new” 1942 engine from Kennett, Missouri to repair the 1938 one in the MARY A. WHALEN. The Missouri engine will be broken down and its parts combined with the engine block in our ship. The solid pipe portion of the steering system that runs along the boat deck needs to be rewelded together or replaced.

2.     Exterior welding around the house to do spot repairs. Same kind of work needed at base of Captain’s cabin. 5.     Welding project to rebuild wheelhouse window boxes (the boxes into which wood windows dropped down when open)

3.     Re-gasket portholes.

6.     Brightwork (varnishing). There is some restoration work and ongoing annual maintenance since UV rays deteriorate varnish. To do: Varnish bridge deck rail, and wheelhouse windows on aft side from a ladder. Varnishing interior and exterior woodwork of wheelhouse. Experience needed as varnish is a finicky coating. If you have not varnished, you can sand, and we will varnish.

7.     Carpentry: build new door jams/thresholds for two wheelhouse doors.

8.     HVAC work to get the MARY’s wood-paneled fridge and freezer humming again.

9.     Plumbing repairs: The ship’s domestic water system needs to be reactivated. There are no functioning head (toilets). The system has some burst pipes, a toilet to replace plus its waste pipe (it was filled with cement). We need to get water pump, water heater and either get a bladder for the ship’s water tank or re-line it withe cement wash.

10.        Restoration of tile floor in the galley

11.         Mechanical project not on the ship - repair our 1941 Hyster Karry Krane that was running until flooded by hurricane Sandy. We could use it to move the engine parts mentioned above.

12.         Carpentry: restore used Argie 10 sailing dinghy and another sailing dinghyl You can use them in return!

13.        Carpentry: finish building a 17’ launch started by a neighbor. Make cap rail, install bench seats. Repair one hole with plywood and fiberglass, paint hull inside and out.

As a nonprofit, we depend on volunteers willing to share their skills and experience on and off-deck. The pandemic hit our budget hard, and we need volunteers more than ever. In exchange, you get to be on a special ship and part of a team with a sense of fun and humor while supporting a great nonprofit that impacts many, many people. As payback, you can have a party on the ship, we’ll get you rides on other ships in the harbor, we’ll work something out.

Your help means so much to us. Thanks!