Ocean Wishes has helped children all over the world. Below are some of our success stories.
Donations to Schools and Diving Charities
- Donation to Woman Diver Hall of Fame beginner Training grants (2007 -2024)
- Donation to BTS Ocean Pals (2007 -2024)
- Donation to WWF (2007 -2024)
- Donations to Reef Renewal program in Bonaire (2007 -2024)
- Donation Sea Shepard Annual (2007-2024)
- Donation to trust for public lands (2007 -2022)
- Donations to Red Cross disaster relief (2007 -2024)
- Donations to the Mountain School in the Philippines (2016-2022)
- Donations to children in need of school supplies and outreach projects (2007 -2024)
- Provided fresh water and school supplies to the Malolo School in Fiji. (2007, 2008, 2009)
- Provided funds for the Mud Whole School in Honduras. (2007, 2008, 2009)
- Provided funds for the clinic caring for and rehabilitating injured Mosquito Indian divers and people with spinal injuries in Honduras. (2007, 2008)
- Donated money and training grants to the Lichstein Project for Troubled Boys in Bonaire (2009, 2010, 2011)
- Woman’s Diver Hall of Fame Charities, Ocean Pals, Oceans Four Youth, Shark Savers, World Wildlife Federation, and PADI Project Aware. (2006 -2022)
- Donate to Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation for Grouper Moon Project (2012, 2013)
- Donation for DiveTech’s Grand Cayman Turtle Release program.
Dear Margo Peyton of Kids Sea Camp, Ocean Wishes, and Augusto Montburn of Buddy Dive,
On behalf of Jong Bonaire, we would like to convey our sincere appreciation and gratitude for donating fins to our kids. Sharks of Bonaire (the snorkel course) can and will especially use them on their many expeditions at sea.
Helping the children and activities of Jong Bonaire is our responsibility. With the same direction and same heart every year, we can strive to provide the instruments, directions, formation, hope and opportunities for a better tomorrow. With trust and faith, Jong Bonaire looks forward to continuing your support and commitment to the children of Jong Bonaire.
Sincerely Yours, Thank You Letter from Augusto Montburn
Bonaire, August
Team of Jong Bonaire
Jong Bonaire Email to Margo and Ocean Wishes:
Wednesday, May 13,
First of all, I want to thank you for sponsoring two open water courses to our kids! My name is Judith Meijers, and I work at Jong Bonaire. I attached some general information about Jong Bonaire to this email to give you an idea of what we do. I also want to let you know that most of our kids are underprivileged and come from poor families, so this is a unique opportunity for them! This year, 12 kids got their snorkeling certificate, so it would be nice if I could choose 2 for the open water course.
Regards, Judith Meijers, Jong Bonaire
Jong Bonaire – Bai p’e!
“Go for it!” is a great part of Jong Bonaire’s philosophy. Through after-school activities, teens get a chance to find their talents and interests and uncover their dreams. They also get encouragement. Jong Bonaire hopes to encourage all of Bonaire’s young people to think about the future and start building a path toward it.
In addition to potential career opportunities, the teens of Jong Bonaire learn about the Internet and how to use computers. They can also learn how to cook and about good nutrition. Activities include art, photography, handicrafts, and music. Naturally, sports and ocean activities are also a big part of the scene. But so is homework. Each day, staff and volunteers supervise homework time before the fun activities begin.
Some of the activities:
In the Jong Bonaire KREBO program, many teens learn to care for small children and then spend the summer helping to run vacation activities on the island. Some may go on to become teachers, but all will certainly be better parents because of their training.
A number of Jong Bonaire teens have decided they want to become nurses after joining Club Social, which volunteers in hospitals and nursing homes. Club Social also has activities with the Police department, the animal shelter, and other organizations where the teens learn about volunteering in the community and find potential career directions.
Through Bonaire’s Tourism Awareness Program, a group of Jong Bonaire teens was taught folkloric dancing. Other teens have learned about potential jobs in the tourism sector, which is the largest employer on the island.
The Jong Bonaire Junior Park Ranger program is an intensive program that teaches teens to snorkel, scuba dive, and drive a boat. The program then advances to protecting marine life, which is the mainstay of the island’s economy.
Press Release from Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at the Westchester Medical Center, New York
It is like us all to want to give back some of the good that has played a role in our lives. That is how it was when Beneath the Sea’s Ocean Pals took on the job of helping the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at the Westchester Medical Center. It was to introduce the love of the sea and the vibrancy of the sea’s life to youngsters trapped in medical problems, caught in the routine of hospital life, and the frightening mysteries the hospital contained.
Ocean Pals’s solution was to create a World of Water. Immense aquaria is filled with sea life and color, and the activity is where even children in wheelchairs can sit surrounded by the aquaria and sense the life of the sea whirling about them. There, in another world, suspended in watery time and space, the children are free of the haunting of their illness, its fear, its stress, its all-consuming anxiety. When free of these burdens, the child can find hope, joy, and peace of mind, which are so crucial to the healing process. For all these reasons, Ocean Pals, through their Seas of Tomorrow Society, is committed to nurturing and sustaining the aquaria environment and to adding our strength to the real and symbolic life expressed by it.
Ocean Pals, looking to focus their energies, created The Sea of Tomorrow Society, as a means of fundraising and implementing those energies. Then we looked to the dive industry and its leaders as a means of raising the funds and creating the interest that would permit us the reality of the idea.
Support was swift and generous from all quarters of the dive industry, none more so than from the industry leaders such as Kids Sea Camp … setting the standards for the quality of dive adventure and learning, safety, and responsibility Kids Sea Camp & Ocean Wishes Foundation have given to the children of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital with a warm hand in support through trips, marine art and financial donations at the Sea of Tomorrow’s silent auction designed to raise funds for this healing World of Water.
On behalf of all the children at the hospital and all of us at Beneath the Sea and Ocean Pals … thank you. Your contributions have allowed us to build this World of Water, stock it with fish from around the world, and keep the idea alive for the children.