Restoring Hope Beneath the Waves: How RRFB Is Reviving Bonaire’s Reefs

Reef Renewal Bonaire

Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring and protecting Bonaire’s coral reefs since 2012. Our work focuses on comprehensive coral restoration, combining fragmentation and outplanting, breeding, monitoring, research, and community engagement to support healthier and more resilient reef ecosystems for the future.

Education and outreach are also a huge part of our mission. Through presentations, training programs, school partnerships, and community outreach, our goal is to help people better understand the importance of coral reefs and how they can have a positive impact on them!

Over the years, Kids Sea Camp and Ocean Wishes have supported RRFB by helping introduce visiting families and young divers to coral restoration efforts in Bonaire. Through countless presentations and participating in our coral adoption program, they have helped facilitate more than $13,000 in donations to RRFB!

At a time when coral reefs are declining here in the Caribbean and around the world, donations help us adapt and scale our work in real-time, allowing us to respond to a rapidly changing environment. Support is crucial to our core mission of strengthening Bonaire’s reefs and empowering more people to have a real impact on the ocean. (See more about Ocean Wishes)

Scholarships and grants for diving

Ocean Wishes, find raisers

Underwater awards from Ocean wishes

Our 2025 diving scholarships and training grants are now open for application. Each year, Ocean Wishes and Kids Sea Camp sponsor 12 diving scholarships and training grants for kids who would otherwise never have the chance to learn to scuba dive. The donated funds are for full scholarships and partial grants for underprivileged kids who need help finding their way to the underwater world.

From 2010 through 2024, Ocean Wishes has provided the Women’s Diver Hall of Fame with $35,000 (plus 35 dive training grants) each year. See the scholarships page at WDHOF. (See link)

We believe that by fostering direct hands-on experience with our beautiful undersea world, children and their parents will make better choices about living with and loving our marine environments. We also sponsor many children around the U.S. and in local island communities such as Grand Cayman, Yap, Utila, Galapagos, the Philippines, and Fiji. We support workshops, outreach programs, and scuba diving certifications—wishes you made!

Ocean Wishes offers scholarships and training grants in these categories: contact Tom Peyton at tom@oceanwishes.org for more information and apply. Please share the link with other dive industry professionals, educational institutions, dive stores, and dive buddies — all ocean-minded individuals you may know. We believe that when people understand and appreciate the beauty of our oceans, they will become motivated adults committed to protecting the environment for future generations. Experience is an influential teacher, and Ocean Wishes is dedicated to allowing children and their families to experience the underwater world.

Scholarships in 2025

    • Dive Master Advanced Education $700
    • PADI Jr. Open Water $500
    • PADI Public Safety Diver $300
    • PADI Advanced Dive Training Rescue, Advanced Open Water $500
    • Women’s Diver Hall of Fame $2000

Grants in 2025

    • Marine Conservation projects $200
    • PADI Disabled Diver Training $300 grant