Shared Beat - Mon., Apr.22

Saturday evening, after our Comfort Volksmarch and Costco shopping trip, we headed west to Boerne, Texas, for Shared Beat's Hill Country Crawfish Broil. Shared Beat is a 501(c)(3) volunteer organization whose focus is on Guatemala. Their mission: to empower children and their families through health and wellness care and education so they can achieve self-reliance and a positive future.

I had never heard of Shared Beat until Bob started working at his current job. The owner and his girlfriend support the organization. We were invited to attend the crawfish broil which had live zydeco music, silent and live auctions, and a big pizza-sized box full of food.

The event was held in the backyard of a large estate and was well attended. Tables were scattered around the yard. Our server brought us iced tea and we went inside the house to look over silent auction items. There were big baskets filled with themed items like coffees, or a movie night basket with DVDs, popcorn and candy, handmade items from Guatemala, a large doll house completely filled with furniture, artwork, wines, books, and more.

Also inside the home were instructions on how to eat crawfish. We did our best to memorize them for dinner.

When we returned to our table, our server took our dinner order and within ten minutes we had our "pizza box" filled with crawfish, beans, slaw, pasta salad and a cheese biscuit. An adventure in dining followed. Even after the instructions we read, I wasn't quite getting how to get at the crawfish meat. Luckily one person at our table loves crawfish and showed us how to eat them. I'm not sure we did what he did, but eventually I ate every single one of those spicily cooked "mud bugs."

For dessert, the servers brought around trays of cupcakes: key lime, German chocolate, apple, and chocolate with lemon frosting. My favorite were the German chocolate cupcakes.

After dinner was the live auction. I was amazed at the bidding! Wow, some people really got into it.

The money raised is for a good cause, to help support Shared Beat. Here's a little more about what the organization does...

• Provides year-round vitamins for 4,800 children, pregnant and nursing mothers, and senior citizens living around the Guatemala City Dump and in 22 rural Guatemalan villages.
• Parasite prevention
• Medical support
• Visual screens and glasses
• Healthcare scholarships
• Health education

Why did Shared Beat choose Guatemala?

• Guatemala has the highest child and maternal death rate in Central America, six times higher than the United States
• 49% of children under age five are chronically malnourished
• 21.5% of Guatemalans earn less than $1 per day
• 56.2% of Guatemalans live below the poverty line, making less than $4 per day
• 60% of enrolled students finish sixth grade
• 38% of secondary-school-aged students enroll in secondary school
• 1% of Guatemalan children go to college

Shared Beat is an all volunteer organization. There are no salaried administrative staff or board members. Medical trip volunteers cover their own travel and lodging expenses.

We had a fun evening with lively music, good conversation and it was all for a good cause.

Travel Bug out.