“My vision is to build a center — a real center — a club that is a community center where you can go and you can spend time with your family, go and work out, learn to row, and do other open-water sports, like coastal rowing, or paddling, or kayaking,” Oria told the Journal-News several months ago, as the first-ever U.S. Coastal Rowing Team planned to compete in Europe.
He hopes to have a center with a restaurant, where where people can hang around, and observed, “It gives fun life to the city.”
The organization sent out emails soliciting donations, with a well-made video that captures the feeling of quickly gliding in rowing shells on the Great Miami River with the team.
A link to the video is at https://tinyurl.com/2p8ad9ta.
“It’s one of the most peaceful things in the world,” one young woman on the rowing team says in a voiceover on the video.
Team members say the sport and their involvement with the club improved their physical and mental strength, and a sense of family. For some, it offered the opportunity to row in college.
Competitive rowing is a sport people see on the Olympics, but most don’t think the sport is a possibility for them, one member observed.
“Not every community has that opportunity,” Caitlin Schumate, a board member and team alumna says on the video. “Here in Hamilton, we have the perfect opportunity for that.”
“The first time I came to Hamilton, I fell in love,” says Oria, who points back at the river behind him in the video.
“Here we have 3,000 (meters) of water. The stretch of water is fantastic,” he adds, noting there are no other watercraft, such as barges or motor boats to obstruct the rowing.
On the other hand, Schumate notes the current storage area for the boats and other rowing equipment between North B Street and the river is somewhat ugly — a mostly ugly gravel lot with a fence and no shelter for the boats, which the team can’t have pride in as its home.
Hamilton City Council in October approved the sale of property to a company called VRG Hamilton B St Apts, LLC, which wants to build 34 apartments, and possibly the rowing facility, between B Street and the river, not far north of Main Street. It would have some of the best views of downtown Hamilton.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
The team needs better equipment and a gym — “a place where, after being outside, in the cold, after practice they can get warm,” Oria says. He wants the team to excel, but: “To reach that level, we need better,” he adds. “We need a center.”
A center with a boathouse would extend the boats’ lifespan. It also would offer “a community space,” Schumate says.
Oria believes a center like that would encourage more people from Hamilton “to hang out,” and enjoy the river.
“This capital campaign and the new facility would mean everything to our team,” said Lorelei Langmeyer, a crew youth rower.
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