Fuel, Voice, and Boats: DUC's 2026 North Texas Giving Day
Dallas United Crew is doing great. Our kids work extremely hard, our program has grown to more than 140 youth athletes, and in 2025 we backed that growth up with our first-ever National Championship, on top of Regional and State titles. None of that happens without the support this community has already given us over the past several years, that support has let us buy new boats and fuel real growth across the team.
Now it's time to take care of what that growth has left behind. Our older fleet has aged. Our coxswains are sharing equipment that hasn't kept pace with a growing roster. And our race-day operation needs to match the program we've become.
This Giving Day, we're asking you to help us close those three gaps.
Fleet Replacement Plan — $52,000
Years of generous fleet growth have left us with something every growing program eventually runs into: a mix of boats from vendors spanning a dozen different eras, several of which don't exist anymore. That makes parts and maintenance a real challenge, and it means some of our older boats are simply due for retirement.
This gift lets us standardize on Hudson going forward, so maintenance and parts stop being a scavenger hunt every time something needs fixing. It also builds something we've never had: a capital fund we can move on the moment the right boat comes up for sale. Good used boats don't sit on the market long ie: when a program like University of Texas women's decides to sell a used boat, the window to act is a matter of days. With this fund ready, DUC can say yes on the spot and retire one more aging, out-of-vendor boat.
Coxswain Enhancement Package — $9,500
Our coxswains are excellent — that's never been the question. The question is that we don't have enough SpeedCoaches, cox boxes, and walkie-talkies to go around a team this size. Right now, we don't have enough equipment to get to every boat, and coxswains sometimes have to choose which piece of equipment matters most for a given practice instead of having what they need every time they're on the water.
This gift closes that gap. More SpeedCoaches means every boat, not just some, trains with real race-pace data when it matters most. More cox boxes means every coxswain's voice reaches their crew, every practice. More walkie-talkies means our coaches can stay connected across a lake that's gotten a lot busier as we've grown. It's about giving every crew the same tools, not just the ones who get there first.
Lastly, the safety lifts allow crews to operate more efficiently and less margin for something to go wrong.
Concept2 Oars (2 new sets) — $7,500
Every year, a class of seniors finishes their last stroke for DUC and moves on — to college, to whatever's next — carrying years of early mornings and hard racing with them. We want DUC to carry something of theirs forward too.
When we hit this goal, every graduating senior in the 2026–2027 class gets their name on an oar — one that keeps going out on the water for years, in the hands of rowers who never met them. Someday, a freshman who wasn't even part of this program yet will pick up an oar, see a name, and know someone rowed this same water before them, hard enough to be remembered for it.
Food Trailer — $16,000
Regatta days with DUC are long ones: athletes up before sunrise, racing and rigging all day, often ten hours or more, through Texas heat or Texas cold depending on the season. A food trailer becomes DUC's kitchen on wheels: hot food and real hydration right when our athletes need it between races.
It also becomes something bigger: one home base at every regatta where our high schoolers, our Masters rowers, and our adaptive athletes gather, eat, and cheer for each other, all as one team. And when DUC hosts a regatta here in Dallas, it's what lets us run the kind of first-class event a program our size should be running.
Every one of these gifts meets our athletes exactly where they are — the crew waiting its turn for a cox box, the senior whose name will sit on an oar long after they've graduated, the whole team gathered together on a long race day. Thank you for helping us build a program worthy of the athletes and families who've already made DUC what it is.