Chris Molligan, stubborn a-hole as he can be, has been one of my best friends since we were just 4 years old. He's actually saved my life. No joke, but that's a story for another day.
Wakeboarding has always been a serious hobby of ours, and every year we'd stretch our limits on dealing the cold, starting sooner and refusing to retire the boats later and later each season.
We eventually reached the point where December and January were the only months we had yet to get in the water.
Four years ago we decided to bridge this gap.
"Come on man we gotta do it. It's December, so I'll wear like a Santa hat, it'll be sweet," I told Chris. Not 10 seconds later: "Wait no, no forget that. I'm buying a Santa SUIT."
And thus, the Lafayette River Santafest was born. Yes, I admit, there is a wetsuit hiding under the Santa Suit to keep me from dying if I fall in the water. But that doesn't do jack to save my hands and feet from ending up in terrible, terrible pain...
After a couple years of doing this we decided "Hey, we could really make something special out of this. Really do it right."
So last year we turned it into a charity fund-raising event. We'd do it every Christmas Eve at 2PM~ish, and we would leave fliers at every single house on our section of the Lafayette River, letting families know when and where it would all go down, and what charity we were helping.
Last year we raised money for The Park Place School, a small privately-funded school for high-risk youths. This year we supported The Elizabeth River Project, an organization that works on multiple fronts to restore the quality of the Elizabeth and Lafayette Rivers.
We don't personally collect any money for it, just give the organizations' web address, so I have no idea how much, if any, money we've actually raised. But the crowds of kids on the docks get bigger every year, and I have an absolute blast doing it, so it won't be ending anytime soon.
-Andrew
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