Between low tide and courage – From youth room dances to beach clean-up with Sarah Connor

It's October 1st. 7 a.m. The house is quiet, my family is still asleep. I sit on the sofa and gaze out at the gray city of Hamburg. In front of me is the train set my son built yesterday. Laundry hangs above the door, waiting to dry. Not the sea, as many might think, but everyday life. A computer, a sofa, a few traces of family. And as the day begins outside, tears stream down my face. Not out of sadness, but because I'm overcome with gratitude.

Today I made another donation – to an organization that doesn't just work, but truly makes a difference. Ten months ago, in January 2025, I wrote my first email to Janek Andre and Sarah Connor. I was on vacation, full of doubt and yet full of hope. Could I have guessed back then what it would become?

Today, almost ten months later, I look back:

– a joint podcast with Sarah Connor and Janek Andre
– a clean-up in Timmendorfer Strand , where we collected 152 kilos of garbage
– Donation check for 8,175 Euro - yes, we rounded up :) for the Iberian Orca Guardians
– two whole fishing nets that Sarah and Janek brought back from Spain – we dismantled and recycled them by hand in Hamburg and Portugal, and now hundreds of fans wear these former ghost nets as Bracenet on their wrists

And above all: encounters that last. Two girls, maybe ten years old, who asked me at the clean-up: "Is Sarah Connor your friend?" I had to laugh and replied: "I wouldn't call it that—but I've already hugged her twice today." Their big eyes, full of admiration for marine conservation, were a silent gift to me.

Sarah – an artist I admired as a twelve-year-old, dancing to her songs in my bedroom 25 years ago. And today, a woman who, without having built her career on it, is committed to the oceans and orcas. She's someone who means business. There aren't many people with the reach to champion such important issues. Sarah is courageous in my eyes, perhaps because she has nothing to lose and stands by herself and her chore values.

I'm an entrepreneur, yes. But on days like these, I feel: I'm also an activist. And perhaps that's precisely why Bracenet was created—as a bridge between both worlds. A small bracelet that tells a big story. A story that makes donations possible, that retrieves nets from the ocean, that raises awareness.

Sometimes I don't know how I'm going to pay my personal bills. And yet today—on Bracenet's tenth birthday—I can proudly cut a cake. Not as an end in itself, but as a symbol that it's possible to make a real difference with an idea that no one took seriously 10 years ago.

Maybe that's what remains: not the perfect business plan, but the courage to raise your hand at the right moment. To retrieve nets. To get up, even when you're tired.

And sometimes – just sitting on the sofa in the morning, looking out at the gray city of Hamburg while the family is still asleep. In front of you is your son's train, the laundry above the door. And crying. With gratitude.

Almost all of the first bracenets from these two nets have been salvaged. A few are still available—and every single one of them will go directly toward the second donation check. For the protection of the Iberian Orca Guardians.

The Iberian orcas are one of the smallest and most endangered orca populations in Europe. Only about 35 animals remain between Spain and Portugal. They suffer from overfishing because their main food source – tuna – is becoming increasingly scarce. They collide with ships, get entangled in nets, and are exposed to noise and stress from heavy shipping traffic. Every birth, every loss, determines their survival. If we do nothing, this group could disappear forever in a few years. But right now, there's a new baby orca in the group, and that makes my heart leap again and again.

And that's precisely why every bracelet, every vote counts. Your vote. So that the Iberian Orca Guardians can continue their research, protection, and education. So that perhaps in ten years we won't have to talk about their disappearance, but about their survival.

Happy Birthday to me – Happy birthday to our first baby BRACENET