One of my fondest and most vivid memories is of me and a childhood friend playing in the heavy, cool rain, on a warm summer day. It rained all day and it never got old. We only threw in the towel when my mother forced one around us.

Several years later, I found myself in what would become another fond and vivid memory of a rainy day.

I had been looking forward to our stop in Roatan, Honduras for months. I knew we only had one day there, and I wanted to make the most of it, but the rain just poured and poured with no signs of stopping. My high hopes of exploring beautiful Roatan were dashed. That is until my travel companion Kim Mance took the bull by the horns (the bull being a very grumpy, heavy set fellow working for a tour company). Everyone was lining up for personal van tours, as just about all other activities were canceled due to the downpour. Explorers, we are! Tour people, we aren’t. It took some scaling language barrier walls, but Kim finally got “the bull” to agree to just drive us wherever we would like, and forego the actual tour. Genius!

Our main mission that day was to leave the tourist town and stop over at the Elfrida Brooks grade school. When Kim realized we were stopping over in Roatan, she took up a very successful fundraiser through Galavanting for this tiny school.

The kids—who had come for miles to see us and get some new school supplies—were fantastic! They were all polite, grateful and energetic, as was their teacher, Darla. It was very plain to see that Darla cared about each and every one