Hawai’i Goodwill Team Connects with the Community in Camarines Sur, reports Dawn Henry
On August 14, 2011, fifteen athletes from the Big Island of Hawai’i found a new way to get the most out of a destination race adventure. Traveling to Camarines Sur, Philippines, for the 2011 Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines, they visited with local schoolchildren, put on diabetes testing and a dental education clinic, reconnected with generations of relatives, and did their best to spread a little aloha.
It all started when Kona resident and professional triathlete Bree Wee raced in the inaugural event in 2009. She came back to Kona raving about the venue, the race organization and the people of the Philippines and started a buzz about the race within the local triathlon community. Grant Miller and Janet Higa Miller, owners of Kona’s Bike Works triathlon store, decided to put the race on their calendar in 2010. Like Wee before them, the Millers returned to Kona praising the race and marveling at the hospitality they had received. Janet Miller recalls, “I was especially touched by the students and youth that came out to cheer us on through rice paddies and villages.” She recounts being met along the course by school bands and cheering squads and how the youngsters’ high spirits had made her race such a positive experience. “We so appreciated their efforts, we decided to go back in 2011 and bring friends,” says Miller.
The Millers found plenty of enthusiasm for a group trip in 2011. Some members of the group had relatives in the Philippines, and others were venturing to Asia for the first time in their lives. Early on, the athletes decided that they wanted to do something to give back to the community that supports the race. “We wanted to do a mission for the kids in the province where we had raced,” says Miller. The athletes formed the Aloha Tri Sport Goodwill Team. It consisted of eleven individuals who signed up to compete in the full 70.3, four individuals who signed up for the bike and run portions of two relay teams, and a “support group” of family members and friends.
Throughout 2011, the team busied itself raising funds for supplies, organizing shipments and connecting with other organizations to plan the visit. Every member of the team found a way to contribute. Drs. Antonio and Luz Racela, parents of Big Island resident and triathlete Ricci Racela, helped organize the mission through contacts in their hometown of Kansas City, Missouri and in the Philippines. With the help of the Racelas, the team partnered with the World Outreach Foundation of Kansas City and the Naga City Penafracia Lions Club.
Once assembled at the race venue, the team made two site visits, one to a high school and another to an elementary school. Area adults were offered diabetes testing and health information. The team made presentations and distributed school supplies to the younger children and athletic supplies to the high school children. Kona resident and relay team member Madeleine Budde offered a dental education clinic and gave away toothbrushes.
The team members say that the trip was made so much more special because of their interaction with the local community. Susan and Jason Nixon traveled with their daughter, 11-year-old Audrey, to visit some of Susan’s relatives as well as compete in the 70.3. The Nixons spent a few days in Manila visiting with Susan’s aunt and cousins before joining the other Kona competitors in CamSur. Susan Nixon says that she hadn’t been to the Philippines since she was her daughter’s age, and that the trip was “extraordinary” on many fronts. “The race itself was incredible. Every person in the province comes out to cheer you on. You felt like a movie star. I felt really appreciated and really humbled…. The other thing that was amazing was that the group really synched. We did what we wanted to do which was to give back and do it in person.”
Kona resident and relay team member Edgar “Eddie O” Ombac and his wife Rose Lorica-Ombac also used the trip as an opportunity to see family. The parents of both Ombacs live only ninety minutes from the race site. In addition, Eddie, who was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, attended college not far from the race site. The Ombacs visited with family and friends and acted as an informal bridge between the Big Island group and the local community, offering interpretation when needed and introducing the visitors to the local culture.
Eddie Ombac says that the trip, for him, was more about the mission than the race. Nevertheless, he said, “the run course was one of the most amazing run courses I’ve ever done. I would be dancing and moonwalking with the kids who were playing drums. Then the rice fields would be so quiet and serene you almost wanted to stop and look around.”
Kona residents Cliff and Bobbi Acheson had never before ventured from the borders of the United States. They signed up for the race as a lifetime adventure, and were swept along with the power of the mission just like everyone else. Bobbi Acheson recounts the trip as “a very positive experience,” and says that one of the things that made it so special was to watch how the sense of purpose in the trip mellowed out a group of triathletes who would normally be more “Type-A” before a big race. “Everyone was going with the flow,” she said.
For Bobbi, this included interrupting her own race to assist a fellow triathlete. She says it “was pelting rain on the bike.” She was concentrating on keeping her eyes on the road in the rough conditions when she saw a competitor standing on the side of the course with a bike wheel in his hands. She thought to herself, “I’m on a goodwill tour. I’m not racing past this guy.” When she approached him, he said that he had a flat tire and was having trouble repairing it. She passed him some supplies and he was able to get back on the road.
The goodwill team proved to be a tour de force on the race course. Four of its members brought home qualifying slots for their own local race, the 2011 Ford Ironman World Championship. Seven competitors made the podium, including professional Bree Wee and Bobbi Acheson, who, even after her stop to help another racer, finished second in her age group. But spending time with the children of the community may be the moments that the Goodwill Team remembers longest. Miller says, “The smiles and hugs that we got were just amazing and made it all worth it.”
Source: Ironman.com
Pete Jacobs grabbed his second consecutive Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines title with a dominant wire-to-wire victory on a winning time of 3:51:43 at the rain-drenched CamSur Watersports Complex, Pili, Camarines Sur last Sunday.
