Fishing, Swimming & Surfing in SJDS with Share the Stoke Foundation

In our previous post we mentioned that we needed your help.  After volunteering at a Share the Stoke event this past weekend, I witnesses first hand the difference that this foundation can make in kids lives and their community.

Share the Stoke Foundation (a non-profit dedicated to empowering at-risk youth through the sport of surfing) is one of 2500 charities that has been nominated to participate in the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook.  Up for grabs is $5 million in grants. Of the 2500 charities participating in the contest the 196 most voted for will receive grants ranging in value from $250,000 for first place down to $10,000 for 100 of the charities.

Cast your vote for
Share the Stoke Foundation
by clicking here!

If everyone flexes their social media muscle we’ll have an incredibly positive and exciting follow up post for you at at the end of September. Please take a few extra minutes to spread the word about this great organization via your Facebook account, email distribution lists at work and home, Tweet about it, share it on your blogs and Pinterest, Stumble Upon, Tumbler & Instagram accounts. 

The 1st Annual San Juan del Sur Youth Weekend kicked off Saturday morning with a garbage clean up at San Juan Bay.  Only kids that took part in the beach clean-up were eligible to participate in the weekend festivities.  We had a great turn out and managed to collect over 260 pounds of garbage in only a couple of hours.  This event also gave us some time to start building a camaraderie between the kids and volunteers. 

Later that afternoon Cory and I had the privilege of escorting a group of 18 kids out on a fishing boat. Almost half of the group had never even been on a boat before.  A few of the girls actually held onto each other and screamed when we went over some of the bigger rolling waves.  The trip was much more fun and exciting than we had envisioned.  Thank you Casa del Sur for putting your charter business on hold and taking us all out on your boat.

Sunday events took place at Playa Hermosa which just so happens to be where the TV show Survivor was filmed for two seasons.  Our day started with swimming lessons. It may seem odd that a group of kids that live so close to the water need swimming lessons, but the sad fact is that most Nicaraguans don’t actually know how to swim – which results in multiple drownings every year. 

Given the size of the waves the swimming lessons turned out to be more of a “How Not to Drown Class”. Fortunately it didn’t take long before the kids started to get comfortable in the water. Once that happened they had almost as much fun as the volunteers.

Next up were beginner surf lessons for the kids that felt comfortable in the waves.  I noticed one of the girls that raised her hand indicating she didn’t know how to swim was taking surf lessons.  She actually ended up entered the competition and with the coaching and encouragement of the Stoke girls she caught her first wave.  It was hard to tell who was more excited – her or the Stoke girls – but in the end it was probably the Stoke girls.

Many of the kids were new to surfing, but managed to get up and ride their first waves ever. Volunteers whistling and shouting words of encouragement. The morning had an emotional effect on many of the volunteers, adult surfers and onlookers alike.

The experienced youth surfers took time to warm up for the afternoon competition – or in some cases just goofed off.

Susan, Nicole and Michelle from Share the Stoke collected two suitcases full of school supplies to give out to all of the kids that were at the beach on Sunday.  The kids were super stoked! One of the volunteer teachers in town told me that she was just as happy to see the much needed supplies.

All that was left to do was prep the Firewire surfboards for the main event …. the Youth Surf Competition!