I went on my first trip to Costa Rica with my dad when I was 15 and I’ve been on a bunch of trips since then. For years I have been going to Nicaragua, since way back in the good ole days when no one was really going there. We would rent cars and drive all over, but while you are on your way to surf, you drive by all of these run down houses and see people who don’t have anything and it just starts to eat at you. One year we thought, we should do something for someone besides ourselves, so we brought some supplies down for a school that was there. It was so awesome.
When we first started going on Surf Fish Serve trips my wife was skeptical and she thought it was just an excuse to go down there and have fun. Over the years she’s seen what all we’ve been able to accomplish and the support we get from the community, so that’s made a big difference in her perspective. We do spend a lot of time surfing and fishing, but we also spend a ton of time on projects for other people while we are there and it’s much more gratifying when we do.
Any time you make a personal decision to give away your time or money to someone, it’s ends up being more than just your time and money and it gets to your heart. When you get a chance to share it with others, you look at it through different set of eyes and it’s a totally different thing in such a good way. For instance, we do simple things in the afternoons like beach cleanups and we’ll just spend time with the people and start to build a relationship with them. We get to hear about their real lives and what their actual needs are. They often wonder why we do it and it’s fun to share our story. It’s very fulfilling to be able to share why someone like me would take the time to come down there to help them. Unfortunately, not many people do it, but they should.
Going on trips and doing things for other people opens your eyes to a lot of things you can change personally about yourself. That’s a big takeaway a lot of people wouldn’t think they would get from it, but they do. Ever since we started to add a serving component to our trips, it has just changed things. We have met so many cool people and it has opened a lot of doors to awesome relationships that we would have never had. I think the take away from all this is that the little things you do for people can explode into community changing events. The ability to help a kid to go to school or even college can change the mindset of an entire community. It gives them pride and hope and that is invaluable. If we did nothing what would happen then?