Our Story

In 1995 Bet-z traveled to Costa Rica as a chaperon for a high school Spanish class trip. They had the opportunity to participate in a team building exercise and the students chose white water rafting. Bet-z's raft was comprised of six freshmen girls, a teacher, and the guide who was the only person with rafting experience. The guide stressed the importance of teamwork prior to launching the raft and that teamwork would be vitally important when they reach the most dangerous segment of the river. Throughout the trip the guide would calmly instruct the team by saying "forward please." Meaning everyone needs to paddle forward together through the rapids. As the rapids grew more intense so did his instruction shouting "forward please" a bit louder each time. Then came the most challenging segment of the river and by this time the raft full of inexperienced girls were scared out of their minds and had abandoned the plan, and everything the guide had taught them. It was up to the teacher, guide, and Bet-z to paddle through a section of the river that required a raft full of people to get through successfully. The guides seemingly calm "forward please" quickly turned into a heightened, fervent, quickly cadenced "FORWARD PLEASE, FORWARD PLEASE!" He did however always say please. Obviously the raft flipped and everyone was tossed. Luckily no one was hurt and everyone was successfully plucked from the river to complete the journey. It took everyone paddling together in the same direction to complete the challenge and after their small setback that's exactly what they did. 

Fast forward to 2021 Bet-z and Nikki were pondering names for their non-profit and while Bet-z was telling this story for the 856th time they looked at each other when she said "forward please" and instantly knew they found their name.