Every Saturday from Memorial Day to Labor Day (and sometimes a little later), Gloucester Township’s Lion James unpacks a shipping container at Camden’s Cramer Hill Waterfront Park and gets to work.
At first glance, he’s giving anyone and everyone a chance to take a kayak onto the water. For free. But under the surface, his work will have a much bigger impact.
“We’re eliminating the burden of low expectations,” James says. “I’ll be happy when an inner-city child tells somebody they went kayaking, and the stranger isn’t surprised.”
Six years ago, when James attended an event hosted by Upstream Alliance, a non-profit that supports community leaders as they facilitate on-the-water experiences, he was immediately hooked. And when the opportunity arose to bring their free kayaking program to his own community last year, he dove in head first.
Today, he leads his team – made up of about 6 certified Camden County volunteers – to set up kayaks, demonstrate safety instructions (in English and Spanish) and answer questions along the Delaware River at Cramer Hill Waterfront Park.
One or two guides are stationed on the water, one on the shore helping people in and out of kayaks and a few more at the table for sign-ups. James also sets up a small tank with fish he’s found in the water that morning and puts inflated balls out on the water to help engage the littler ones.
“I wasn’t born knowing how to fish or cook or camp, my father gave me that. And I want to pay that forward.”
Even on rainy days, the program still attracts almost a dozen paddlers. But when it’s a nice day, participant numbers stretch into the 60s. “I look at it as a means of recreation, as a vehicle for improved mental health and a means to reinstall and reinvigorate pride in communities that are often not seen as having this type of reason to be proud,” James says.
And the kayaking remains completely, totally, free.
“The program runs on enthusiasm and passion,” James says. “Nobody has to register online or buy tickets, which makes it easy to access. And we have such a diverse staff in terms of ethnicity and age and gender and education and access, nobody comes to one of our paddles and feels unwelcome.”
Not only do people feel welcome, the program has plenty of regulars, like a woman who brings a new guest every week and a man who comes for a 30-minute paddle before he heads to work. But it also attracts kayaking newbies who turn into kayaking stars.
Like the woman who had never kayaked before but eventually graduated from Cramer Hill to Cooper River and now posts about her kayak trips on Instagram with the hopes that other people will be inspired, especially those who wouldn’t think kayaking is for them.
That ripple effect is exactly what James hopes for every time he meets a new paddler. Growing up in West Philadelphia, James wasn’t expected to be in touch with the great outdoors. He didn’t exactly live with waterways and hiking trails in his backyard. But his father was determined to introduce him – and all the neighborhood kids – to the beauty and benefits surrounding them.
James’ dad, affectionately known as the uncle of the neighborhood, would organize fishing trips, kayaking trips and camping trips for Lion and his friends. He would go fishing and bring back fresh fish to deliver to the neighbors. He would put air in your bike’s tire when it went flat.
“I wasn’t born knowing how to fish or cook or camp, my father gave me that,” James says. “And I want to pay that forward. I feel I’m honoring him while getting to introduce people to something that I really love and enjoy.”
It’s the one thing we’re not able to make more of, says James: waterways, forests, all of this nature. He’s quick to remember that it’s our responsibility to keep it clean and help it thrive. But if no one knows it’s there, and that becomes quite the challenge.
As James’ paddlers float on the Delaware off the coast of Camden, they get a glimpse of ospreys, Bald Eagles, beaver, turtles, fish. On a nice day, they can admire the Philadelphia skyline and Petty Island.
And sometimes, the wildlife come to you.
“We had a mother and son come out one day, they had never been kayaking before,” James says. “And as they’re paddling, an osprey, which looks like a turkey vulture, dives down into the water about five or six feet from their kayak, grabs a bass out of the water, and flies away.”
Yes, it was a moment of terror since the newcomers didn’t know exactly what had just happened. But they didn’t let it stop their paddling. And when they eventually came back to shore, the son was excitedly saying, “Oh, man, did you see that bird caught a fish?!”
“You know, especially if you live in Camden, you drive by the park and no one thinks about the birds and fish, it’s just a park,” James says. “But they got to experience a part of the water and a part of the air above the water. Not everybody gets to see or experience that.”
But James does. Frequently. And he’s going to do everything he can to enable others to have these same awe-filled experiences, even if it’s something as quick as telling a new paddler how to safely float on the Delaware.
He often quotes a line from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letters From a Birmingham Jail:” “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“Just because you feel like you’re doing something small, doesn’t mean that a chain reaction won’t happen,” James says. “These are my ripples that I hope go out and change the landscape, literally and figuratively, and then come back. It’s not for me to enjoy the benefits and the influence. That’s for later, elsewhere and others.”
