Newport Biz Helps Fund Fishing Trips to Teach and Inspire Kids

It's been a great year on the water for thousands of kids thanks to Newport Beach-based Wallace Air Cargo Group and the Phil Friedman Outdoor Youth Program.

The youth program was created to introduce children to the great outdoors so they will grow up to protect it and Wallace Air Cargo Group, founded by Ned Wallace, has helped fund some of its trips to sea. Sully Moore, committee chairman from Boy Scout Troop 2000 in Fontana, recently had a group of 60 kids and adults out on one of these trips and says it was an incredible learning opportunity.

“Kids will never be the same after a trip like this,” Moore told Phil Friedman Outdoors Radio. “After the kids touch, feel, and see these creatures, they are way less likely to dump oil in a storm drain."

Along with teaching kids about protecting the ocean, Wallace Air Cargo Group and Philip Friedman Outdoor Youth Program have worked together to do good deeds to help people around the world. The children and adults from Troop 2000 took up a collection for Crisbel Rodriguez, a 10-year-old girl from Costa Rica, who lost her father to brain cancer and was unable to go to school because her family had no money to pay her tuition. The groups raised enough money to help Crisbel return to school.

“This is a win win,” Moore said. “Thanks to Wallace Air Cargo Group, we get a day on the water that we will never forget and at the same time, we are able to reach out and help Crisbel go back to school.”

But the good deeds don't stop there.

Earlier this year, Wallace Air Cargo Group also funded two kids’ trips for Fishers of Men West Coast. Not only did a lot of kids get to go fishing, but the two trips raised enough funds to ship over 5,000 pairs of shoes to the poor of Baja California.

“Without Wallace Air Cargo Group, we not only could have not gone on these unbelievable trips but we could not have shipped all these shoes down south,” Moore explained.

Richard Imamura, who recently wrote the movie the Manzanar Fishing Club, has become an avid supporter of what Ned Wallace is doing to make our communities better.

“Top notch work making a difference in people’s lives,” Imamura said. “These are the kinds of acts that renew ones faith in humanity.”

Imamura was so taken by the work that Wallace has been doing with the Phil Friedman Outdoor Youth Program that he included a 1-minute message from them on every Manzanar DVD.

Tim Barbee from 61st St. School in Los Angeles was recently out on a whale watching trip with over 100 kids and adults and said the trip would not have been possible without the collaboration of Wallace Air Cargo Group and the youth program.

"Let me make this clear; we would not have this opportunity if it were not for this program," Barbee said. "These trips mean more to our students than I can express in words."

Perhaps nothing sums up what these recent trips have done for our youth more than the case of two brothers from Wilmington. Nine-year-old Hector Medina and his 11-year old brother Manuel knew nothing about the sea before they took a Wallace Air Cargo Group trip about a year ago.

Since that time the boys have become walking encyclopedias about the sea and all that inhabits it. Their mother, Gabriela, says that this was one of those forks in the road that has changed her children’s lives.

“I am so thankful for what this has done for my children,” Gabriela said. “Their grades are better, they have something they really love and they live to learn more and more about the sea. This has truly been a blessing in our lives.”