CISF is a coastal education organization that provides access, education, and recreation to kids and adults for life on the water. Located in the heart of Jamestown, we serve Rhode Islanders near and far, all year round, with seasonal programming: sailing, marine science, fishing, summer camps, and beyond.
Bradford N. Swett founded CISF in 2000 on a simple belief, that everyone should be able to get on the water. It began as a fund that helped local sailors compete at the national level. In 2010, Meg Myles became CISF’s first Executive Director. In 2012 she launched Sea Adventure Camp, and the work turned toward teaching kids about the water and the coast around them. In 2022, an agreement with the Town of Jamestown let CISF operate at Fort Getty year-round for the first time, and in 2025 we broke ground on a year-round center, built with more than $5 million raised from the community.
We believe that ocean health and human health are fundamentally linked. Through our programs, we strive to create generations of informed marine and environmental stewards through education, hands-on experiences, and personal impact awareness.
Providing affordable access to the coastal environment is also a guiding principle at CISF. We are committed to continued program growth with a focus on partnering with like-minded organizations and schools that serve marginalized and diverse groups, communities, and populations. Through these partnerships, CISF offers outreach programming that engages middle and high-school aged youth with coastal access and opportunities they may not otherwise have. All of CISF’s programs are free or subsidized to make them accessible.
In 2025, CISF served 1,000 young people across more than 1,700 hours of programming. CISF’s programs are rooted in the belief that all paths lead to the ocean. Our goal is to create positive experiences in nature, whether that means climbing a tree, sailing a boat, counting invasive species in the local marsh, or digging in the garden. CISF delivers STEAM programming (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) that couples experiential learning with the intentional teaching of social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. Giving kids time off from technology to explore, learn, create, and interact with nature is a critical component of mental health and well-being.
CISF educators support the local Jamestown schools, teachers, and students by providing hands-on projects that align with curriculum. Our partnership with the Jamestown Schools is strong and time-tested, and provided at no cost to the school or student families.
CISF after-school and home-school programs, field trips and summer camps are the cornerstone of our work that gets participants outside and into nature. We provide programming 11 months of the year from our waterfront headquarters at Fort Getty, a town-owned park in Jamestown, RI. For years, CISF taught from a three-season tent and a rented trailer. Our new year-round center at Fort Getty, with classrooms, a wet lab and a workshop, is nearly complete and will open later this fall, so we can bring coastal education, access, and opportunity to more people from the island and around the state.