Non-profit foundation seeks help to continue building children from Limón with values ​​and a love for the sport of surfing.

The non-profit organization Waves and Smiles, which carries out activities in Playa Cieneguita, needs our support with supplies to provide better work for the children of the province of Limón who join in this important function.

Waves and Smiles has a limited number of educational materials to provide quality work and continue making smiles in the Costa Rican South Caribbean, which is why it has sought ways to raise funds through sales of shirts, mugs, and other items related to the organization; however, it has not been able to obtain the expected support.

Due to this situation, Mike Castro, the Foundation's General Director, has launched a campaign to raise the necessary funds to purchase softoc boards. The number of children served by the organization has grown rapidly; currently, they assist 150 children and young people from at-risk communities, but they only have 17 boards—a very low number that causes many children to lose motivation due to the long wait times.

In addition to the surfboards, the Foundation wants to professionally enhance the work it provides and showcase it to encourage more people to join this wonderful and important initiative. They plan to achieve this by purchasing photographic equipment, such as a digital camera, an underwater camera, and a drone. Beyond the water, they also have plans for professional development for young people, including funding to purchase computers for children and teenagers who lack them and need them for schoolwork.

In addition to this, Waves and Smiles has other needs that are increasingly broad due to the number of young people who want to be part of this support, both emotional and in sports training. These needs include accessories such as waxes, leaches, lycra, as well as food and sun protection with sunscreens.

“We have many needs because we are a non-profit organization and we do everything purely out of love. Our population of children is very large compared to the boards we have. We also now work with children with autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities, so we don't have adapted boards. We also want to improve our visual aspect with photographic equipment, since we had a camera that broke, and the limitations for recording our work are numerous. In addition to our work on the water, we are creating study centers to support the children, and the materials we have are very limited. I try to help them using my own computer, but the idea is to have computers for them so they can do their schoolwork here. There are also professionals who have offered to provide English, math, and other subject centers. Furthermore, we would really like to buy a printer to print their homework assignments, since they often find it very difficult to do this. We hope you can help us, as our initiative is for the benefit of our children and adolescents, stages that are very important for forming good adults with strong values,” stated Mike Castro, General Director of Waves and Smiles.

If you would like to help this important and wonderful initiative of the Waves and Smiles Foundation, here is the address of the campaign where you can contribute:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/6jzxhg-fundacion-waves-and-smiles?utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_more

Written by: Enrique Hernández

General Management: Marco Montero