Purpose 

The Sharon high school sailing team would like to replace its aging fleet of 2007 boats. The coach has orchestrated an exceptional offer from a local private school to sell Sharon (for a great price) their very well-maintained boats at the end of the spring season. Such offers are rare, and the likelihood of another in the next few years is slim at best. The 2022 FOSS fundraising campaign hopes to bring in enough money to accept this excellent offer. 

Background 

Sharon's sailing team started 20 years ago with four borrowed boats and a volunteer coach. Over the years, the team has more than doubled in size, it has acquired sailboats, and it has risen from a third-rate team to the top of the A Division. It won several league championships, and in 2017, it was ranked as the best public high school sailing team in the state.  

Unlike private schools, the public schools in this area do not provide boats for their sailing teams so the students and other community organizations typically fundraise for this purpose. In the past, Sharon’s sailors raised money every year which was deposited in the school’s account and used to pay for various sailing equipment not covered by the school.  The funds they brought in were enough, in combination with proceeds from the sale of existing boats, to pay for newer, gently-used sailboats. (Boats are sold in fleets, usually in multiples of six, the number required for a team race event, so that boats are in equivalent condition for a fairer competition.)  

The least costly way to maintain a good fleet of sailboats is to acquire excellent used boats, take good care of them, and sell them half a dozen years later while they still are worth something.  At the same time, use the proceeds along with additional funds to buy a newer, but not new, set of good boats. That strategy, repeated several times, has been very successful for Sharon.   

In 2019, in conjunction with a raise in athletic fees, Sharon changed its fundraising policies.  Going forward, students would be prohibited from fundraising for their sports teams directly via the school, but the school would start paying for all necessities for sports teams ...with the exception of sailboats which were to be covered by the town’s Capital Outlay Committee. (A 501(c)(3) organization that supports a sports team is not subject to school policy so they may continue to fundraise on behalf of a team.) Two years after the prohibition of student fundraising for sports, however, the school declined to ask the Capital Outlay Committee for sailboat funding so the necessary money must be brought in by the sailors’ support organization, the Friends of Sharon Sailing.

Contributions may be made on the Donation page of this website.