Sail for Kids gUG is a 100% donation-funded, non-profit organization that is not allowed to generate any profits. Due to the non-profit services of the founders and helpers, the proportion of administrative costs amounts to approx. 5% – 10%. The rest goes directly into the implementation of the individual projects.

At Sail for Kids, we see it as our responsibility to use every cent donated to support children in their valuable development.

This is achieved through special sailing trips on professional charter yachts, which serve as a home for the “crews” for the period of one week. Together with educators or their caregivers, the children travel by bus or plane to the port where the yacht is taken over.

In addition to the founders Philipp Lenner and Ümit Uzun, who sail a large part of the trips themselves, we are supported by other experienced skippers.

On our sailing trips, we don’t just sunbathe and swim together. The children experience 100% of everyday life on board. Joint docking and undocking maneuvers, sail setting, navigation, cooking on board and seamanship are not only exciting new territory, but also require perfect teamwork and a high degree of mutual respect.
In addition, the children get to know our nature and the environment up close. Together we explore the underwater world, go fishing, visit historical cities and undertake activities in which we free beaches from garbage.

An unforgettable adventure with high educational value.

Surrounded by water on the sea, life on board opens up new perspectives and holds the power to shift the boundaries of comfort zones and get to know yourself better. Invaluable values that can be passed on to Sail for Kids thanks to every single donation.

Passion not only connects. Like love, it harbors the ability to unleash forces to realize one’s dreams.

Without this passion, the friendship with each other and the love for our partners and children, the “Sail for Kids” project would not have been created.

We – that’s Jane and Philipp Lenner and Steffi and Ümit Uzun. Four friends, parents and passionate sailors.

But let’s start from the beginning…

Philipp, who was taught the passion of sailing by his father at a young age, has been with his childhood sweetheart Jane for 25 years. Together they have two children in their teens. Jane was quickly enthusiastic about sailing and the associated feeling of freedom on the water. She has retained her respect for the forces of nature and the depth of the sea, but these feelings are quickly forgotten on the family trips together – sailing is simply too beautiful!

When Philipp chartered the yacht for the next trip in 2017, Jane got her hands on the charter documents. The name she took from the agency’s documents made her smile. “Ümit Uzun? I know him from before!”.

The managing director of the charter agency actually turned out to be a childhood friend whom she had not seen for 30 years.

Ümit, who founded his first small company for sports travel at a young age, lives for the sea. A passion he also owes to his father and which ultimately led him to found the yacht charter agency CHARTERABAR Yachting. Together with his wife Steffi, who also works in the agency, and their daughter Emilia, they regularly go sailing as a family. Steffi’s passion for sailing was ignited during her first trip together with Ümit. A few vacations later, she received the marriage proposal from Ümit – in the middle of the sea in a dinghy.

It is the year 2021, in which Steffi and Ümit launch a project with their agency called “Sail for Kids”. They want to give disadvantaged children from a children’s home the opportunity to experience a sailing trip. Ümit immediately contacts Philipp, who has since become a close friend, and involves him in the project as a filmmaker and boat guide. Together they want to skipper the two yachts on which the children are to experience the passion and freedom that they themselves once received from their fathers many years ago.

The project is a complete success!
And here begins the actual story of “Sail for Kids”.

The experiences on the trip with the children do not let go of the two sailing enthusiasts. Their wives quickly realize that “Sail for Kids” has far more potential than a single trip and together they begin to make plans about how it could continue…

12/05/2022, 10:30 AM

At the notary’s office in Würzburg, Jane Lenner, Stephanie Uzun, Phillip Lenner and Ümit Uzun sign the founding documents for Sail for Kids gUG.

In the end, it was the friendship with each other, the love for our children and our partners and the experience of being able to actively do something good. Sailing changes for the positive, lets the mind come to rest, promotes mindfulness and is much more a journey for the soul, which can be individually adapted to the needs of each individual and opens up new perspectives for us.