15 August, 2014

Dear Sir,

What Chewstick deserves most from us is thanks, encouragement and, here and there, a little bit of forgiveness. It’s easy for us to throw darts when something doesn’t go according to plan, but I happen to know that Chewstick’s Gavin Smith and his team put a lot of effort into planning, often facing situations and tackling issues that are beyond the limits of courage most of us can bring to the table. Yes, I am biased. I know Gavin’s parents and his grandparents — good roots!

And I’ve watched as the Chewstick concept has grown from a bold and creative germ of an idea to a formidable and positive force in the lives of countless young people.

It takes creative genius, leadership and a double dose of chutzpah to even dare to provide order and entertainment to thousands of beach-goers on the Island’s biggest holiday of the year. Yet Chewstick has had the foresight and vision to pull it off and do it so well as to become victims of a sort of their own success. It takes a solid reputation and well-earned trust to seek and be given $10,000 to hand out as a prize to a single youth. Yet Chewstick saw the possibility, seized the opportunity and, in these hard times, steered an enormous pile of dollars to convert a young person’s dream perhaps into a career.

Big ideas sometimes don’t go all right, so the mistakes look big too.

And big ideas often become big targets to throw darts at when things go wrong — and we small-islanders do like to notice when things go wrong. But I want Chewstick to know that we notice their extraordinary efforts too, the successes that don’t make the news, the brilliant innovations that steer so many of our young and not so young people away from some of life’s pitfalls.

Let’s give Chewstick more of what they deserve: appreciation, assistance and a dose of tolerance. Chewstick’s leaders are an amazing group of bold and talented change-agents. We’re lucky to have them.

Let’s help them.

STUART HAYWARD