The world lost a good heart with the sudden death of Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker, but the late Santa Barbara resident’s legacy lives on through Reach Out Worldwide (ROWW), a nonprofit network of first responders and EMT-trained professionals who are on call for natural-disaster relief. Founded, designed, and funded solely by Walker before his death, ROWW seeks to fill the gap of delay it takes for foreign aid to get to crisis sites.
To support ROWW and honor Walker, his brothers, Cody and Caleb Walker, were crowned grand marshals of the 64th Annual Downtown Santa Barbara Holiday Parade, which begins at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, December 2, at Sola and State streets and travels down to Cota. Cody, who is now brand manager and CEO of ROWW, spoke to me about Paul and their organization over the phone from his home in Altadena. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.
Congratulations on being named co-grand marshal of the parade. How does it feel to be given this honor? It is a great honor. It was totally unexpected when we were asked, but it’s an honor. Santa Barbara is a huge part of my family, my childhood. I didn’t grow up in S.B., but we were always going up for any excuse we could come up with.