Purchase the Island Box Purchase the Island Box and Support the Community

News

A spark of inspiration

A spark of inspiration

Today is my Birthday! The truth is it’s been a hard 2 weeks… 2 weeks ago we tearfully told 40+ employees that their jobs were going on a long pause knowing that this was our only option to keep them safe. For 2 weeks we took our food at the hotel and resort and prepared meals to be delivered to the families that depend on us for jobs to feed their own families… Anyone can build a wooden structure and call it a business. What we built in Bocas is more fragile than that. Our business is made up of the people we fill it with... a team that we love enough to call family. Telling the people that you love that you can no longer provide jobs for them was paralyzing. Then, today I reminded myself that if there is a crisis you don’t freeze, you move forward. You always move forward. And you get everyone else to move forward too because you have seen worse and your situation could be a lot worse. So today... ❤️ We gave more food to the food bank for families in need ❤️ We donated more money to help build packages for families in need… ❤️ We set aside more money to do it again… Then we did what we do best. We came up with a plan to invest in the community that we love and cherish.

... as of today, we are buying as much coconut oil as we possibly can from the community to keep them working. We might not be able to move forward with tourism right now, but that doesn’t mean we can't move forward with other things. We are safe and healthy and sheltered away on an island in paradise. Our situation could be worse, and all we need is enough money to buy basic supplies for multiple families. Today we posted signs all around the community of Salt Creek that we are buying coconut oil. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll let you know what we are doing with it. And why coconut oil? Because the beaches are lined with palm trees and within the rainforest behind those beaches lives the most amazing community of Ngäbe-Buglé Indians who have the means to make the purest organic coconut oil on earth… 🌏 The knowledge that I got to wake up healthy and happy was the only perspective I needed today. It also helps that I’m sheltered #safeathome with a family that makes me feel like every day is my birthday. So over the next few weeks as we collect all this oil, I’ll post exactly what we are going to do with it. 1 bottle of oil is equivalent to the dollar amount that a family needs to provide basic food supplies for their families, and basic food supplies are what we people need right now.