I have had the luck to live by many rivers. As a child in Alexandria, Virginia, I lived a few blocks away from the Potomac River, and, as a young adult in my twenties, I lived with an expansive view of the mighty River Plate in Uruguay and Argentina. However, it wasn’t until I moved to Richmond that I interacted so fully with a river. The difference was learning to paddle board on the James River.
With just a slim board between me and the water, paddle boarding allowed me to be literally on the river. Once I learned the basic mechanics of the sport, the impact of this first paddle boarding experience was immediate and gratifying: from this vantage point, I could experience all the river had to offer more fully, with all my senses. I remember looking up and around and noticing the life nearby. I observed the leaping fish and the verdant shoreline. I saw and heard the geese formation flying above me. It was hard not to smile as a sense of wellbeing and awe flooded over me. And to think that this was only 20 minutes from my very urban neighborhood!
Each time on a paddle board since has brought back similar sensations. Any stress from the week drops when I’m on one. I reap immediate benefits in my physical and mental health in the rich estuary environment that the James River affords me. I am here, now, on the water. In fact, it is this experience of wellbeing and connection with the water that inspired me to form The Crosswind Foundation.
As a psychotherapist for 25 years, I have worked the majority of my career with low-income urban youth. In my conversations with these youth over the years, I would get quizzical looks when I asked them about their personal river experiences. To these youth, the James River was just something you crossed over on a bridge on the way to someplace interesting, not some place you wanted to go. What would it be like for them to have an experience such as mine? What would it change in them?
The Crosswind Foundation hopes to make those changes possible for our Richmond metropolitan youth. The goal we have is to make a river experience accessible to these children through paddle boarding. In this first year, we aspire to teach 100 children the sport. In so doing, we hope to not only introduce them to a new sport, but a new environment in which to interact.
Won’t you join us in meeting this goal of 100 children this year? Your $50 donation will give one child this experience. Imagine what it would be like for a child to come away with an outward sense of success in the sport, and an internal sense of calm within!
Please visit our Donate page and make your contribution. Because of your contribution, you are making an impact in how a child experiences the James, and if you love the James as much as me, that alone puts a smile on your face!