Spirit At The Beach Foundation

is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a 509(a)2 public charity designation.

Close the Gap

We turn good intentions into meaningful, measurable results.

Our platform makes it easy to discover opportunities to share your time, talent, and treasure

Connect your contribution directly to projects and people where it can make a real, life-changing difference.

Find Ways to Give

Create Lasting Impact

We Are ALL Connected

Often on vacation, we run across people we'd like to help or situations we'd like to improve. Maybe you just want to 'get to know the locals.'

Spirit At The Beach is providing a platform to make it easy to locate ways to help, in person and from afar.

From coordinating in-person volunteer opportunities to providing ways fund local classrooms, artists and vendors, we are expanding ways to reach out and help change lives in meaningful and sustainable ways.

That connection creates a unique opportunity, permitting us to shine our light brightly, as we support others whose light cries for amplification. Spirit At The Beach Foundation supports and creates projects designed to help us lift each other up in meaningful and lasting ways.

How We Help

Our projects focus on creating connections that lead to

life-changing, sustainable results.

IT'S ALL ABOUT CONNECTION

• Online Galleries connect artists to a larger market and the ability to accept credit cards

• Teachers' WishLists connect Donors directly to relevent, current needs so tachers get what they need

• Community Calendars connect traveling volunteers to organizations and events while providing local schools, churches and others with an expanded volunteer pool

• The Artisans' WishList connects Donors to supplies needed by local artists

• E-Books For Teachers connects teachers and students to an almost unlimited source of titles

• The Entrepreneurs program connects seasonal workers with the opportunity for stable, year-round income

Jamaica As Our Testing Ground

Why start with Jamaica? Well, every good plan needs a starting point and Jamaica is a perfect place to start for a variety of reasons.

1. It's small in both population and physical size. With just under three million people, it is a place where incremental change can have a big impact quickly. Physically it is small enough to service people and organizations island-wide

2. Tourism supplies over 30% of the Country's GDP, contributing around 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, representing 4.1 million tourists.

3. Like many emerging nations, Jamaica is a Country full of promise in the form of human resources who, with a small hand up, can transform their lives while building generational wealth. Jamaica is a place where real change can happen with a variety of simple tools.

4. The rest is personal. Jamaica and its people welcomed us with open arms and we are grateful.

Paying A Debt Of Gratitude

We are truly Blessed. Living in Jamaica, where so many have so little, I am greeted daily by grateful people. Arriving on 7-Mile Beach during the pandemic, we had no idea, really, what we had stepped into. The Country had just re-opened. Occupancy on the beach was at four percent. This, combined with curfews and weekend lockdowns, created a rare and unique opportunity to become acquainted with Jamaica and our new, adopted family. We didn’t know what we didn’t know.

Our “Good Morning” was met by beach vendors’ refrains of, “Jah is good!;” “I am thankful for life!;” “Wah gwaan!;” and “Bless up!”. Little did we know many of them were sleeping on the beach for lack of means to get home. There was no business. There were no tourists. There was no money.

It was October, usually a time of restless anticipation for the busy season, but not this year. Coming off months of shut down, with zero income, people were now facing the prospect of a slower than slow tourist window. And yet, they were grateful.

It feels impossible to put into perspective the Spirit of the Jamaican people. They showed us love and compassion and understanding every single day. They embraced us as family, knowing we had arrived here somewhat unintentionally as a result of Covid and the world situation. Through curfews and lockdowns we spent hours and days with folks who, in normal times, we’d likely meet casually to purchase a necklace or carving. And we began to learn.

This is a Country where life is complicated and challenging for its citizens. I know I can never understand the culture nor the economics of life here – Layers upon layers of nuance born from centuries of domination and oppression.

About three years in, we began to understand the Jamaican heart. Gratitude and Love are ALWAYS the answer. Every day, no matter how impossible or dark life seems, there is something for which to be grateful. And affirming gratitude throughout the day lifts us up as well as those around us.

I thought I knew this before we arrived here. I did. I just didn’t really ‘get it.’ One morning, my greeting to our groundskeeper was met with, “I am grateful I have breath. God is good!” A reply I’d heard many times from others. I learned that the night prior, a neighbor’s goats had gotten into my friend’s yard and totally destroyed the garden crop his family counts on taking to market. Expressing my dismay, he smiled, and like a father speaking to a small child said, “It’s ok. I still have breath. We have life. We must give thanks.” No anger for what was lost; just gratitude.

Jamaica is what some call a third-world country, less developed and advanced than European and American nations. To me, Jamaica is a miracle; a place where people at their essence, understand our deep connection; a place where how you conduct yourself is more important than who you are or what you own.

We are grateful everyday for the gift of landing in Jamaica. We feel a debt of gratitude to a Country and a People who lift us up every day for no reason other than that’s who they are. We pray our presence is a blessing more often than a burden.

We must give thanks and we must give back.