I always start my fundraising pitch with a story. My Spice Girl name is "Story Spice."

This one starts with the Eshelmans’ rich maritime tradition. Our childhood watercourse, the Conestoga Creek (of Conestoga wagon fame, later promoted to “river”) was a shallow, murky, often kind of smelly thing that became a wide, raging torrent in flood times, carrying splintered wood, furniture, paper bales from a mill upriver, and even dead animals and depositing all of this periodically on the gentle slope leading from our front porch more than three hundred yards to the river.

In calmer times, I hunted for golf balls in it, skated on it, canoed and rafted on it and tried hopelessly to coax fish from it, one time becoming so frustrated my friend Jack Sawyer and I whacked a huge, pregnant carp into submission with paddles and carried it home to my family; my mom banished the fish and sent the photo to the local newspaper.

I can’t find that picture. I DID find a newspaper clipping of my mom skippering a canoe with my sister and two of her classmates from our grade school in 1969, looking for pollution and debris. They did not have to look far, as you can see.

What’s the point? I was fortunate enough to have ample physical education and myriad recreation opportunities sanctioned by my school and mandated by my family growing up. My mother actually thought sports was a way to meet girls. And MY daughter did everything from “dance and jingle” to Gymboree to school phys-ed to club sports. 5:00AM wakeup calls for volleyball, yay!

Thousands of kids in Southern California aren’t so lucky. So, Sunday, August 15, my fellow board members from our non-profit Fit 4 The Cause are going to don lifejackets and KAYAK back and forth across the clumsily-named "Westlake Lake" at Westlake Village to raise money for disadvantaged local kids who would not get physical education at all if it weren’t for Fit 4 the Cause. My vessel was christened the YAKatori; everyone else has goofy YAK names like “Weird Gal YAKovics,” and “PsychiYAKtric” and “CardiYAK Arrest.” You’d think I didn’t have any imagination.  Over the years, I have done quadrathlons, swimming relays, the Marine Mud Run and DJ’d to raise money for us. We try to keep it interesting. If capsizing is interesting. I’ve never done this before.

Here’s the unfunny part of my story: public school physical education programs need urgent funding.  When budgeting for the Fall 2021 school year, there was uncertainty about how classrooms would operate, particularly in a gym environment. Fit 4 The Cause, which provides low or no-cost fitness instruction to underserved and at-risk communities, just received appeals from local principals, asking our organization to provide physical fitness for their students (Grades K-6) who--let's face it--need physical education more than ever after 18 months of lockdown and in-home learning.

So: please sponsor me (and I again dedicate my performance to the memory of our co-founder and leader David Adelman). I’ve going to livestream this thing, like I did when I did the quadrathlon remotely from Billings Montana and the MINT Film Festival two years back. Last year we couldn’t even do any physical activity in public. Your dollars will enable us to continue our crucial work enhancing the health and well-being of the predominantly low-income youngsters we serve in Ventura County through our innovative, diverse fitness programs. Thanks for letting me YAK on about this.

OK the fine print here:

History and Mission:

The mission of Fit 4 The Cause is to improve the health and well-being of the most vulnerable populations – children, adolescents, young adults with special needs, and the frail elderly – in the mostly low-income and underserved communities of Ventura and Los Angeles counties.  We achieve these goals through expertly run exercise programs. Each of our physical fitness programs designed for public schools adheres to State education curriculum standards and can be modified to more traditional gym activity.  

Who We Help – The Need:

I’ve always believed that, like health care, exercise and fitness are a basic human right. No argument against it holds water. The need for health-enhancing services in low-income communities is enormous and growing.  According to a recent study published in the Lancet, TEN times more children and teens are suffering from obesity in comparison to 40 years ago.  This same report states that youth in the United States, ages 5 to 19, currently have obesity levels above 20%. 

With COVID, things have become are even worse. Children’s physical activity was limited or even eliminated, exacerbating the obesity problem; obesity aside, physical education mitigates COVID-induced stress, depression and reinforces important social skills hard to acquire remotely including teamwork, camaraderie, focus, spatial awareness, confidence, leadership, and discipline.

So, remember, unlike public radio, I try to have only one fund drive a year, so please give now so I don’t have to come after you again. 

Please help my fellow Fit 4 The Cause board members and me to improve the lives of the children in Ventura County, California. Your support now can make a significant difference in the quality of these children's lives, now and into the future. 

My deepest appreciation and gratitude,

Henry