Navigating Life's Changing Tides
Operation Get Out creates intentional, evidence-informed experiences in nature and on the water for individuals and organizations navigating life’s changing tides. Through connection, movement, nature, water, and shared experience, we create opportunities for renewed perspective, greater meaning, belonging, and new possibilities.
Who We Are
A 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Creating Intentional Change
Operation Get Out is a Texas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit creating intentional, evidence-informed experiences in nature and on the water for people navigating life’s changing tides.
Founded from the lived experience of getting outside and onto the water after difficult days, Operation Get Out has spent years witnessing what can happen when people intentionally step away from the noise, reconnect with nature, move their bodies, share meaningful experiences, and find connection with others.
What began as lived experience is now supported by a growing body of research validating the physiological and psychological effects of nature, water, movement, social connection, and awe. These experiences can influence stress regulation, perspective, mood, connection, and meaning, creating powerful conditions for people to pause, reconnect, and consider what might be possible next.
We bring lived experience and evidence together to create experiences that are intentional, accessible, and meaningful.
Events
Intentional Experiences. Meaningful Moments.
Our events create opportunities to intentionally step outside, get on the water, move, connect, and experience something different. From paddleboarding and boating to cycling, hiking, and fishing, each experience is thoughtfully designed to create connection, shift perspective, foster belonging, and open space for greater meaning and new possibilities.
Because sometimes changing your surroundings can change what you see - and what feels possible next.
Donations
Help Create What’s Possible Next
Your support makes intentional, evidence-informed experiences in nature and on the water possible for people navigating life’s changing tides. Every contribution helps create access to experiences that foster connection, belonging, renewed perspective, greater meaning, and new possibilities, regardless of where someone is in life or what tide they may be navigating.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Operation Get Out relies on the generosity of donors, partners, and community to make these experiences accessible to anyone who needs them.
Your gift doesn't simply fund an event. It helps create the space, opportunity, and connection for someone to experience what might be possible next.
Operation Get Out began with a love of the outdoors and a simple understanding.
Intentionally getting outside and onto the water can change how we experience what comes next.
For Kristin McLain, a StarFlight nurse, and Jessica Hollis, a Senior Deputy with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, getting outside and onto the water became an intentional way to step away from the demands of difficult work, reconnect, and find perspective. They lived and modeled the power of getting out—often bringing others along with them.
Then, within six months of one another, we lost them both.
Kristin and Jessica’s deaths brought us face-to-face with a much larger need. The first responders, families, friends, and communities around them were navigating grief, anxiety, uncertainty, and profound change. Many began turning to the same places and experiences Kristin and Jessica had valued—nature, water, movement, and connection—and asking us to create those opportunities for others.
That moment became a catalyst for Operation Get Out.
What began through lived experience has grown into years of intentionally creating experiences that bring people outside, onto the water, and together.
Along the way, we have witnessed what Kristin and Jessica had already shown us: changing our surroundings, moving our bodies, connecting with others, and creating space for perspective can change what we see, what we feel, and what we believe is possible next.
Today, Operation Get Out creates intentional, evidence-informed experiences in nature and on the water for people navigating life’s changing tides.
Our work is informed by both lived experience and a growing body of research validating the physiological and psychological effects of nature, water, movement, social connection, and awe. We bring those insights together to create experiences that foster connection, belonging, renewed perspective, greater meaning, and new possibilities.
Kristin and Jessica opened our eyes to what was possible. Their story is part of where we began, but it is not where our story ends.
Today, we carry that possibility forward for anyone navigating a changing tide.
We have worked with first responders, military, nurses, foster children, special needs, struggling youth, and individuals battling illness, grief, loss, PTS, anxiety and depression – all who continue to share amazing testimonies of how nature and water has moved, unlocked, and refreshed them.
Operation Get Out has opened my eyes and taught me how important it is to take care of myself. It has taught me how important it is to say I’m not ok and to find help and healing through therapy and most important, to me, my blue mind!
Law Enforcement Deputy
I cannot thank y’all enough for allowing me to join you on the water yesterday; after a year caring for COVID patients and caring for my own children during the pandemic, the water was exactly what I needed to help let it all go. This is an amazing organization!
ER Nurse
