As you well know, our Spring 2010 line benefitted Surfing The Nations and we were able to send them a check for $17, 246.43 because of YOU! We love supporting our partners and believe in the work that Surfing The Nations is doing.  Read the letter below from Surfing The Nations’ Cindy Bauer to see how YOU made a difference.

Thank you for your amazing, generous financial contribution to Surfing The Nations! We are so stoked and overwhelmed by your goodness to us! We are grateful beyond words for our partnership.  Your commitment is the greatest encouraging and inspires us to the impossible.

Your Jedidiah donation of $17,246.43 has been disbursed as follows:

Bangladesh – Surf Clubhouse

Surfing The Nations will be sending $500 to the building of the Surf Club House.  STN had raised all but $500 of the projected budget to build the Bangladesh Surf Club.  With the Jedidiah funds the dream of the clubhouse will reach its exciting completion. The government of Bangladesh donated a plot of land in front of the surf break for the clubhouse and now the building can begin.

Sri Lanka – Surf Center

The vision of a Surf Center in Arugam Bay, Sir Lanka was birthed when STN sent a team to help with the tsunami of 2004.  A STN Surf Center would be an outreach center housing a permanent team with the ability to receive short term teams.  At the center, local people will be taught how to repair surfboards, will be taught English as a second language, will be able to train locals in food services by building a small restaurant on the property; will create a place to “hang out” to watch surf movies; etc, etc. We are sending $500 of the Jedidiah donation to our team in Sri Lanka for the Surf Center work/building. The property is secure and we have finally successful dug our well (the well was a major project taking three attempts) so we now have water on property. Buildings still need to be erected so the base can become a place where people can live and gather together. Sri Lanka is a big surfing destination for Israeli as well as other international surfers so we’re looking forward to how this will impact them as well as the local community. This summer there will be a 6 star surf contest event with Sri Lanka Airlines right in “our” little village, Arugam Bay.

Wahiawa Transformation

STN is focusing on seeing Wahiawa transformed for good – starting with the porn shop next door! It is the second largest porn shop in Hawaii and needs to be gone.  STN needs parking to meet state requirements to proceed with our development of the STN Community Center (former bar).  The porn shop has the best parking on the block.  We want to purchase the porn building and parking as well as the strip club two doors down and see this community radically changed. We want Wahiawa to become a place people want to come to instead of run away from. We are putting $724.43 towards our efforts to transform the ghetto of Wahiawa and hope to report miraculous stories soon.

Surfing The Nations Wahiawa Headquarters

Without the STN Wahiawa headquarters there would not be Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Feeding The Hungry or any of the other ministries of Surfing The Nations. The Wahiawa headquarters is where it all begins: training volunteers, interns and staff, it is a place to live, gathering and sorting of food, clothing, and household donations, sending out mission trips, tutor the youth of the neighborhood, meeting room for lectures to concerts and run the STN office.  The cost of the apartment block and former bar was $1.5 million and we were miraculously provided $1.3 million at the outset! We were left with $200,000 to raise and pay by 22 December 2010. Before the Jedidiah donation we had a balance due of $79,000. We have applied $15,519 of your giving to our mortgage leaving a balance due of $63,481. Your contribution has been an incredible boost to us! We are trusting in God that the balance will be provided. Having our headquarters paid off will establish us with roots deep in Wahiawa, as the building itself becomes part of our branding and identity in the community and internationally.

Disbursement of the Jedidiah Donation:

Bangladesh Surf Clubhouse: $500.00
Sri Lanka Surf Center: $500.00
Wahiawa Transformation: $724.43
STN Wahiawa Headquarters: $15,519.00

Total Donation $17,243.43

For more about Surfing The Nations, head to www.surfingthenations.com. Also make sure to watch the video below of their recent Freedom Surf Contest!