My Year of Adventure: Part One

Posted by on Apr 29, 2014 in Dan Eldon Legacy

Dan Eldon was quite a guy. He sought out adventures and added excitement to the simplest tasks. He was fearless and courageous. It seems like nothing stood in his way of exploring the world and having a rockin’ good time while doing it.

My name is Sara Cummings and I first heard Dan’s story almost exactly a year ago. I was blessed with an opportunity to do a “study abroad” in Los Angeles with 25 other students from my university. (I went to school in Virginia, so California is practically a foreign land.) My professor announced available internships  – one of them being with the Dan Eldon Legacy. It didn’t take much research for me to realize that I would love nothing more than to spend my summer learning about Dan.

One year later, I am now the director of the Dan Eldon Legacy. As someone who was expecting to be nanny-ing for my first three years out of college while I figured out what on earth I wanted to do, I personally see this job as a miraculous gift from God. Most days I have to pinch myself that I get to wake up in Santa Monica and drive 7 miles up Pacific Coast Highway to get to our beautiful oceanfront view at the Dan Eldon Center for Creative Activism.

I have gotten to turn the pages of Dan’s original journals, read every book, and spend time with some pretty incredible people – two of them being Dan’s mom and sister. Dan’s mom, Kathy is a vivacious woman who wholeheartedly believes in people and expects the best of everyone. For some reason, Kathy believes in me. She believes in my potential even when I don’t feel even a little bit qualified.

So, because of Kathy, I started working with Barton Brooks, a charismatic, loving and genuine man. He founded a non-profit called Guerrilla Aid, supporting people to volunteer and change the world around them because one person definitely can make a difference.

rachel in zambia

My best friend Rachel with her dear friends in Zambia. I can’t wait to meet them all!

One day, I was chatting with Barton about his Africa trips, I told him about my best friend Rachel who is currently living in Zambia.  I showed him the precious faces in all of her pictures. These people I have heard so much about. They are her friends. They are her family. Almost immediately, Barton offers to send me to Zambia to have my very own Guerrilla Aid trip.

It took me a few days to actually believe that he was serious… and then I booked my flight!

So, tonight, April 29, 2014, I will board my flight to Zambia. I can’t really believe that I am about to take on international travel alone. And honestly, I don’t think it’s actually going to hit me until I am flying and looking down at the vast Atlantic Ocean leaving America and heading to the other side of the world.

It is without a doubt going to be a wild adventure. I will learn about Africa. I will try new foods. I will follow my best friend in and out of Grippis village. I will see the continent that Dan fell in love with as a teenager. And hopefully, in the midst of it all I will learn about myself.

I am going to try to blog as much as I possibly can. I will update you on our project and our daily activities! If you have any words of wisdom or stories of your own, please share them with me! My email is sara@daneldon.org.