Yes We CAN! The Citizens’s Action Network Part—2.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Ms. Judy Darby, Program Coordinator, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, District Eight.

The success of the Citizen’s Action Network program is proportional to the number of members in the network, the extent of their training, and their familiarity with their particular waterway. A member’s contribution is not dependent on his or her ability to confront a situation or fix a problem, but on the ability to report appropriate information to the Coast Guard investigator.

CAN members might be called upon to aid search and rescue efforts, verify radio calls and flare sightings, and note unsafe vessel operation, aids to navigation equipment outages/abnormalities, suspicious activity, and marine pollution.

After training, a member receives the Coast Guard sector communications emergency number to be used for reporting purposes. CAN reporting uses the acronym “LAST” to describe the information to be reported:

• location of the incident,
• activity,
• size and identification information of the vessel involved in the incident,
• time, date, and conditions at the scene of the incident.

As well-trained members are best prepared to aid Coast Guard watchstanders, the committee provides a CAN observers’ manual that instructs members as to the order in which the watchstander will ask for pertinent information and terminology that will be used.

See Part 1 here.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/fall2010.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Yes We CAN! The Citizens Action Network Part—1.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Ms. Judy Darby, Program Coordinator, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, District Eight.

The area of District Eight encompasses the New Orleans metropolitan area north to the Red River and west to Lafayette, La. Within this area, there are thousands of acres of sparsely populated marshland and swamp near the cities of Baton Rouge, Port Fouchon, Lafayette, Morgan City, and New Iberia.

Citizen’s Action Network (CAN) USCG Auxiliarists worked to launch a small committee of citizens who volunteer to help the U.S. Coast Guard save lives and property, report oil spills, and protect wildlife, in an effort to improve area maritime security.

The committee focused its early recruiting efforts on auxiliarists who live, work, and recreate on the water, and on large entities with permanent water presence and an interest in adding another layer of security. These partners include:

The Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission—which manages the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a double span that stretches 24 miles entirely over open water from Jefferson Parish to St. Tammany Parish in the New Orleans metropolitan area.

NASA/Michoud Assembly Facility—located on an 800-acre tract in East New Orleans, the facility has direct access to the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation—This non-profit foundation had partnered with the Coast Guard in environmental efforts.

Recruitment Efforts
Recreational boaters, fishermen, and waterfront homeowners were reached through vendors who display tri-fold Citizen’s Action Network information brochures and application forms at checkout counters.

Anyone interested in joining can now fill out the form online and send it directly to the local CAN coordinator, who verifies that the applicant contact information is correct and vets the applicant for program participation.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/fall2010.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

The Non-profit Organization Grant Program

Partnering to improve boating safety—Part 1.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Donald J. Kerlin, Chief, Program Management Branch and Ms. Linda Gray-Broughton, former Non-profit Organization Grant Coordinator, U.S. Coast Guard Boating Safety Division

The Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971 established the Recreational Boating Safety Federal Financial Assistance Program to permit states to assume a larger share of boating safety education, assistance, and enforcement activities. Of the funds appropriated for these programs, the Coast Guard is authorized to retain up to five percent for grants to national non-profit public service organizations.

The Process
The grant process begins with an announcement through the website http://www.grants.gov/, which includes a listing of suggested topic areas that receive additional points in the scoring process. About $6,000,000 is available for non-profit organizations each year.

Subject matter experts review each application using a “merit review” checklist, which focuses on technical merit, personnel qualifications, and the degree to which a proposal offers potential value and measurements to program goals.

Those applications meeting review standards (60 to 80 per year) are forwarded to the non-profit organization grant review team, which ranks selections based on parameters including:

• support of National Recreational Boating Safety Program goals,


• probability of project success,


• return on investment.

A grantee must be a national non-profit public service organization and the project must have the potential to benefit recreational boating safety at a national level.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/fall2010.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.