Jeff Bauer’s 30th Birthday Service Trip

THE IDEA...AND WHY

This year, on July 1st, I will be turning 30.  While on the 2012 deployment aboard USS ENTERPRISE, I read about several different people and groups who had taken mission trips for their birthdays and I became inspired to do the same thing; rather than spend my 30th birthday celebrating myself and taking presents, I hope to use all of that goodwill to collect the money necessary for a service trip.

Why a service trip?  Because in February 2012, while still serving in the Navy and quickly approaching my second deployment aboard ENTERPRISE, I had a major personal crisis about the direction of my life; while I have a great amount of pride for my service and enormous respect for all of my fellow veterans, I realized that the military simply was not for me.  I experienced an enormous amount of guilt and through a complex combination of events decided to rededicate myself to getting into law school in order to practice non-profit law and give something back to a world that has given me so much.

This service trip is going to be the first large step on that journey and will give me a chance to experience a life very different from ours while helping out entire communities of people less fortunate than us.

THE ORGANIZATION

My service trip will be to the island of Roatan, Honduras in order to assist a 501(c)3 organization called "World Youth Movement" (WYM); this organization is responsible for a lot of great things on the island, from sponsoring a youth basketball team to provide team sports to communities that cannot support them on their own to providing the Soul Sisters, a girls' empowerment group responsible for teaching young women ages 12-17 about positive self-image, making good life decisions, and how to create positive change and long-term success.  There is not enough space here to descibe all of the good things WYM does, so please take a minute to stop by the website and see for yourself:  http://www.theworldyouthmovement.org/

THE PLAN

I will be assisting with numerous activities while serving with WYM, with the major focus being on the WYM Youth Basketball Team.  Here is (in part) the WYM Website description of the team:

"The World Youth Movement Youth Basketball Team works together with the Bay Island Sport Institute (BISI) to provide youth sports to communities where there was none before.  WYM believes that through team sports youth can learn positive ways of working together for sucessful outcomes, youth become leaders and role models in their communities, and youth are provided a safe and structured place to spend time outside of school...Getting to to play Youth Basketball is a huge privilege and an even bigger source of pride for those who get to wear the WYM uniform."

THE MONEY (AND WHERE IT WILL BE GOING)

I am attempting to raise $2000+ for the purpose of this trip.  Here is a breakdown of where it will be spent:

$800 for airfare to and from Roatan.

$400 for a month's worth of lodging and food while on the island, or about $13.33 per day.

$800 for a donation to the WYM Basketball Team mentioned above that provides otherwise unavailable sports opportunities for Roatan youth.

If the goal of $2000 is not met, I will make every effort to restructure the finances of the trip to still make it to Roatan and help out, but if it's simply not possible then I'll donate any and all funding received directly to the organization.  I will likewise donate any amount over the $2000 goal straight to WYM.

QUESTIONS?

Those of you with my personal email, cell phone, or Facebook may feel free to contact me by any of those means at any time.  For those of you without those, please email me at [email protected] and I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Please help me make this happen.