EmPower! is a program that is built on Andrea’s successful initiatives since 2018 in Tennessee and Georgia and across the southeast to mentor EMerging Paddlesports Leaders who are already embedded leaders in nonprofit organizations, Parks and Rec programs, paddling clubs, meetup groups and other community facing groups doing on-water paddlesports programming.

A Focus on Beginners

We identify paddlesports leaders who are already doing amazing on-water programming on entry-level waterways who might benefit from some coaching and national certifications. By supporting these leaders and their organizations to better achieve their own program goals, we help LEVEL UP the existing paddling programming in a community.

The nature of the program is to lift up the leaders already successfully operating in an entry level environment and provide them the tools to better meet the needs of beginners in our sport. This creates a cohort of instructors and trip leaders who specialize in working with beginners.

Coaching that TRANSFORMS Inclusion and Safety Norms Across a Community

By reaching out to diverse leaders who meet the needs of a variety of populations, we meet the growing marketplace of beginners where they are with mentors they can relate to regardless of age, race, religion, gender identity, creed, or zip code. These leaders provide representation, a familiar perspective, and first-person testimony about exploring new waterways and learning new skills.

And when the on-water leaders across a community start sharing safety norms and feeding the curiosity of new paddlers about how much more there is to experience and to learn, we transform the learning and safety environment across the whole region.

The results are holistically amazing for all stakeholders:

• Individual paddlers find a community to paddle with where they feel welcome and safe to learn new skills and explore new places
• Individual paddlers make better decisions about personal risk management on the water
• Community norms about safety and risk management on the water evolve to support safer decision-making
• Customers get curious about how to make better purchases for long lasting gear specific to their personal needs
• Communities get the benefit of paddler spending with repeat visits and the resulting economic development
• Rivers and Lakes become places that voters have a personal experience with and want to advocate to protect

Creating a Community of Trainers

By supporting these emerging leaders who paddle entry level waterways themselves as they embark on their leadership journey, we also create a community of leaders who have trained together, who paddle together, and who respect each other’s training and experience. This community of leaders is able to support each other and their respective programs long after their experience as a candidate in the EmPower! program.

How Does It Work?

• EmPower! identifies a community where we will focus for a spring/summer season.
  • We need an invested group of already certified ACA instructors who want to pay it forward by volunteering as coaches and sharing their firsthand experience and training. Often, in a new market, we find that more advanced paddlers see this as an opportunity to Train-the-Trainer to help beginners in their community.
  • We need an invested group of sponsors to support scholarships for EmPower! candidates. While each season is a little different, the average cost per candidate for training and certification is ~$1,500 and we can generally support up to 10 candidates per market in a season.
• EmPower! schedules training sessions for the whole season, culminating in an EmPower! sponsored Instructor, Trip Leader or other certification opportunity.
• With scholarships and training schedule in hand, EmPower! opens applications broadly across that community for new candidates to apply for scholarships or to enroll at retail price.
• Scholarships are awarded; candidates attend an orientation, sign up for their preferred dates on the training schedule, and commit to certification opportunity dates at the end of the season.
• Already certified instructor volunteers sign up for training dates to share their skills and expertise as mentors.
• At the end of the season, we hold the culminating instructor, trip leader or other certification events and an end of season celebration.

Past Successes:

• Between 2019 and 2022, Andrea led a call for entry level instructors through her role as ACA Tennessee State Director, supported with mentorship from instructors at local paddling clubs, that led to 33 newly certified instructors and 1 new ACA Instructor Trainer.
• Between 2022 and 2025, Andrea’s work at Georgia Rivers fostered certification of 57 newly certified ACA instructors, approximately a dozen instructors who renewed their certifications, 2 new ACA Instructor Trainers, and 1 new Trip Leader Trainer. Notably, among these newly certified instructors were 27 instructor candidates representing diverse and adaptive populations. This also included cross training for entry level kayak instructors to also teach SUP, Canoe and Adaptive Paddling.
• Between 2022 and 2025, Andrea’s work as ACA Southeastern Chair led to mentorship and facilitation of 38 additional instructors and 1 additional Instructor Trainer across Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas. Notably, this included an emphasis on rolling out opportunities to teach Kayak Fishing.

Looking to the Future: 2026

• We will have an EmPower! Community for up to 10 candidates in Atlanta, Georgia
• We hope to work with our sponsors to identify an additional EmPower! Community for up to 10 candidates.