In 2011, our sprint racing club was attending its very first Nationals in Georgia. We were sort of 'deer in headlights', but the organizers had put our tents next to the Washington Canoe Club and asked them to 'look after us'. They helped wrangle boats, helped make sure we learned all the protocol, cheered for our athletes and made us feel welcome. We've been staked next to/near them for every Nationals since then, and the same has held true. I've looked after their athletes at camps and regattas and they've looked after mine. We've shared boats, and the coaches have shared more than a few meals/libations. When I'm in the DC area on business, I generally stay with a couple of their members (more meals, more libations). When my son died, Jim Ross sent me an email with a positive message every single day for nearly 6 months, until he was sure I didn't need it. When I left my first club and we started from scratch, WCC was our partner, giving us nearly a dozen of their old boats to help get our fledgling sprint canoe program off the ground. I owe a lot to my DC ohana.
To be honest, I don't know whether these folks were paddlers families, friends of friends or who. That doesn't really matter to me - it's the fact that these [struggling for the right words] twenty-somethings would risk their lives driving into a war zone to rescue people they didn't know and deliver them to safety in another country. No funding other than PayPal donations to cover costs, no government contracts, no official sanctions, just people doing the right thing for people. Pretty much the definition of hero in my book.
While on the subject, another example is Jose Andres' wonderful World Central Kitchen. I learned about Jose thru a mutual connection, and started to follow his work as he's moved from successful chef and restauranteur to humanitarian. This started as one guy who created a network of cooks and restaurants who are now present at natural disasters and humanitarian crises with a simple mission - feed people. They do it by networking the local chefs to prepare the comfort food that people eat. WCC does what the big NGOs can't - serve cooked meals to exhausted workers, scared hungry kids and adults - not just arrange supplies of ingredients to be delivered en masse to staging points within the country. I encourage everyone to follow and support Jose. In my mind, he should be a Nobel laureate.
