Big Five – FeedNormally, this week would be a static message about the long weekend. However, the Spirit of Big Five Foundation has been involved with key members of our community in Colombia to bring much needed relief to the area of Choco, Colombia, hardest hit by the recent earthquake. Aid has been very slow here, and as of this writing, the power has been cut off as well. This was after heavy rains earlier in the week caused flooding that prevented help from being deployed earlier.
This week also coincides with the next letter in my late father’s alphabet of emotional intelligence. S for surrender, which is pretty appropriate considering the topic.
Colombia has a way of staying with you. After 44 visits and running in-country operations since 2006, it stops being a destination on an itinerary. It becomes family.
When an earthquake hits, places like Quibdó—tucked deep along the rivers of Chocó—are too easily overlooked once initial headlines fade. The tremors tore through the town, and Doña Anna’s community center took a heavy hit: a collapsed roof section and destroyed cooking stoves.
Instead of waiting around for outside permission to rebuild, Doña Anna gathered her women’s cooperative and fired up whatever makeshift flame they could find. Working through rolling blackouts, they started cooking hot meals around the clock to feed frontline recovery volunteers and neighbors who had lost everything. That isn’t just resilience; that is pure grit.
Backing Anna through The Spirit of Big Five Foundation, alongside our longtime project partner Brian Johnston of Via Cocina in Medellín, was pure instinct. The local neighborhood around Via Cocina pulled together immediately, loading an overland truck with the unglamorous essentials of survival: construction bricks, commercial cooking burners, utility water tanks, and staple food supplies.
Then Chocó reminded everyone that nature writes the schedule. Right after the truck arrived, a massive storm flash-flooded Quibdó, submerging cars to their windshields and stalling deployment. But the water drained, the team pivoted, and the cargo moved through. Brian touched down in Quibdó on Tuesday, met at the airport by Sharon, ready to get to work alongside Sharon, Andrea, Mari, and Doña Anna.
In Chocó, plans are living things. You stay flexible, look out for one another, and move to the rhythm of the community. On Wednesday, the team spent the day at Doña Anna’s center tackling the project’s single biggest bottleneck: sourcing and hiring trusted local masons and builders. By day’s end, the crew was locked in, the debris was being cleared, and the truckload of bricks, tanks, and burners was staged to rebuild the roof and restore the kitchen.
Here is what the blueprint looks like on the ground for the rest of the week:
True impact is never about wiring a check from an air-conditioned office and calling it philanthropy. It is about showing up where it matters, listening to the local leaders who actually run the ground game, and getting your hands dirty with bricks, burners, and an apron.
Huge respect to Brian, Sharon, Andrea, Mari, and the entire Medellín community for turning solidarity into immediate, tangible action. Once the dust settles on this week’s work, we will know what phase two demands.
Because when a place is family, you don’t look away.
Mahen’s Next Letter
S – Surrender: Finding Strength in Letting Go
Autumn, with its fading leaves and rich colors, symbolizes the beauty of Surrender. Unlike the freshness of spring or the pride of summer, autumn teaches us the wisdom, the Surrender. It knows the limits of life and embraces them with grace.
Surrendering isn’t about giving up; it’s a conscious decision to release the need to control every outcome. It’s about realizing that while effort is essential, the final result is often out of our hands. Surrender asks us to trust the process—whether it’s in relationships, careers, or life’s challenges.
Surrender brings peace. When we release the need to manage every detail, we free ourselves from anxiety. Life flows naturally when we accept that not everything is in our hands, and that’s perfectly fine.
Surrender invites possibilities. By letting go of rigid expectations, we open the door to outcomes that might be even better than what we envisioned. Sometimes, the universe has plans far greater than what we could have imagined. Surrender doesn’t mean weakness—it’s a way to embrace life with openness and trust.
Surrendering is a way of making space for those blessings to unfold. When we Surrender, we acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers, and that’s when we allow a higher power, intuition, or the universe to guide us. This trust cultivates resilience and inner strength.
In the end, Surrender is about aligning with the flow of life, accepting the present moment fully, and letting go of resistance. It’s not about inaction but about releasing what’s out of our control. Through Surrender, we invite the possibility of living a life more beautiful than we ever dreamed.
Surrender to what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.” — Sonia Ricotti
