Giving Back (And Taking Waves)

In early March of this year, a low-pressure system blitzed through the Western Atlantic and delivered some of the biggest waves the Dominican Republic had seen in over a decade. At La Puntilla, the island’s premier big-wave spot, locals and visiting surfers alike were dusting off their rhino chasers and fastening their big-wave vests in preparation for the historic swell.

Sure enough, the waves were already reeling on my first day in the Dominican Republic—the only problem was that I was nowhere near them.

“Oh god, that was a dirty diaper,” said Christian Shaw, pulling rubbish from the shallow, stagnant canal we were drifting down on SUPs. Shaw, a skinny, bearded volunteer from Plastic Tides—an environmental non-profit started by avid stand-up paddlers—was leading our group on a cleanup in the narrow, freshwater canal behind Callejon De La Loma, one of the poorer neighborhoods on the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic, about a mile from the ocean. The marshy shorelines were littered with trash, as locals notoriously use the waterway to dump their garbage. Trying my best to keep my lunch down after Shaw’s announcement, I realized this was not going to be a typical surf trip.

A few weeks before, I had been invited to tag along on this trip with Changing Tides Foundation (CTF)—a non-profit founded by women surfers back in 2016 with the goal of partnering with community organizations in the places they visit on surf trips as a way to give back. According to one of the CTF co-founders, Becky Mendoza, their goal is to raise awareness and money for these local organizations after they leave through fundraisers and social media campaigns, eventually helping other travelers connect and volunteer with the locals groups. Last year, CTF raised money to fund a locally-administered, 10-week program in Bocas del Toro, Panama, that focused on women’s empowerment, marine ecology and teaching local girls how to swim and eventually surf.

For this trip they partnered with the Mariposa Foundation, a local organization in Cabarete—a popular surfing destination in the Dominican Republic—whose goal is to educate and empower local girls from impoverished areas by helping them further their education and teaching them how to swim, surf and be good stewards of the environment. Our