One Southwest Florida man is paddle boarding 400 miles to help foster kids

One man is paddle boarding 400 miles from Southwest Florida to the Bahamas to help foster children.

Nicholas Holzerland, the owner of It’s Time Kayak, is going to make his way down the gulf coast while raising $5,000 for Crossroads Hope Academy Foster Home. And he’s excited about his journey.

“There’s just so much wildlife out here and so much to see,” Holzerland said. “It’s beautiful on the peace river.”

He plans to paddle down the Peace River, into Charlotte Harbor, down the Southwest Florida coast, up around the Florida Bay to Key Largo and ending in the Bimini islands.

Holzerland hopes to get there by Thanksgiving.  He’s already on day four of his journey and his only hope is that the weather cooperates. “The only thing I would say I’m concerned about would be the weather not lining up to cross the Bahamas,” he said.

But he’s even more excited that he gets to support these foster kids. “The cause and helping these kids is doing something good,” he said.

Mother Nature would agree that he’s doing something good. “You can’t always get it all,” he said in talking about picking up trash.

Holzerland said he just wants people to follow their hearts. “We just need to follow our hearts and it’s not always going to be easy to do that,” he said.

He said he plans to finish paddling through Peace River this evening and tomorrow he plans to rest.