About Reef Without Borders
About Reef Without Borders
Our Story
We go where the reefs need us.
There is a reef in the Philippines that Clarisa Strohmeyer first dove twenty-five years ago. The water was warm and impossibly clear. The coral was alive with color and movement.
Fish threaded through staghorn colonies.
She went back recently. The water was still warm. But the reef had changed.
Reef Without Borders exists because of that change and because simply filming it and posting it was no longer enough.
About Us
We believe the reefs
can come back.
Reef Without Borders is a Filipino-American nonprofit restoring coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific through funded dive missions, documentary storytelling, and a global community that watches every coral grow.
Support a Reef Rescue Dive See Our ProgramsTo protect the coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific through restoration dives, transparent storytelling, and the power of the Filipino-American diaspora.
Science shows that corals can recover if given a fighting chance. We give them that chance — one funded dive, one planted fragment, one documented mission at a time.
Built by a diver who could no longer just watch.
Reef Without Borders started underwater. Our founder, Clarisa Strohmeyer, has been diving Philippine reefs for 25+ years. She has watched specific sites change — coral colonies that once rose from the seafloor like living cities, now bleached, broken, or simply gone.
She documented it. She posted it. And at a certain point, documentation without action started to feel like a betrayal of what she had witnessed.
Reef Without Borders was built to close the gap between watching and doing. We are a Houston-based nonprofit with roots in the Filipino-American community and operations across the Indo-Pacific. Every mission we fund is filmed and published. Every donor can see exactly what their support made possible. We go where the reefs need us, and we bring our community along for every dive.
Four things we do. All of them underwater.
Fund Reef Restoration
We put money directly into the water. Every grant and donation funds a real dive at a real reef site, with a real science partner on the ground. We plant coral fragments, survey reef health, and document every intervention from entry to exit.
Film Every Mission
Our underwater camera goes on every dive. Reef baseline footage, coral planting, six-month recovery checks, twelve-month follow-ups all of it filmed, edited, and published. Donors never have to wonder where their money went. We show them.
Build Science Partnerships
We do not work alone in any country we operate. In the Philippines, we partner with the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute. As we expand into Indonesia and beyond, we establish local science partnerships before our first dive. Always.
Engage Our Community
The Filipino-American community is four million people with emotional ties to the reefs their heritage comes from. We build programming, partnerships, and giving opportunities that make reef conservation personal not abstract for the diaspora that cares most.
What happens from your donation to the reef.
We select restoration sites with our science partners based on reef health data, bleaching records, recovery potential, and access. Every site has a documented baseline before we begin.
Through donor campaigns, grant applications, and our community giving network, we secure the operational budget for the full mission — travel, dive fees, production equipment, and science partnership costs.
We go in the water with our science partner. Coral fragments are planted, reef surveys are conducted, and our underwater camera documents everything from descent to surfacing.
Mission footage goes live on our YouTube channel and blog. Donors receive a full report. The reef health data enters The Reef Archive — our permanent public record of every site we have ever worked.
At six months and twelve months, we go back. We photograph and film every coral fragment we planted. We report what survived, what grew, and what the reef looks like now. You see all of it.
Meet Clarisa Strohmeyer
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Clarisa Strohmeyer is a Filipina-American communications professional, scuba diver, blogger, and content creator based in Houston, Texas. She has been diving for 25 years, with extensive time in Philippine waters — Palawan, Apo Island, Tubbataha Reef, and sites across the Coral Triangle.
Her professional background spans nonprofit communications, digital marketing, web development, and content production. She holds a degree from the University of the Philippines and certifications in digital marketing, data analytics, and project management.
She did not start Reef Without Borders to raise awareness. She started it because awareness without action was no longer enough, and she had everything she needed to do something real: 25 years of dive experience, a full kit, a camera, a platform, and a Filipino-American community that deserves a direct connection to the reefs their heritage comes from.
Borderless means exactly that.
We begin in the Philippines and follow the reefs wherever they need us. Every phase is built on the field record we establish in the previous one.
Science partner: University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute
Expanding our Coral Triangle presence into Indonesian waters
Full Coral Triangle coverage across six nations
Every program puts coral in the water.
Reef Rescue Dives
Our flagship program. Funded, science-partnered coral restoration dives across the Coral Triangle, fully documented from first descent to twelve-month recovery follow-up.
Learn more →Adopt-A-Coral
Sponsor a named coral fragment. We photograph it at planting and send you progress updates at six and twelve months. Your coral. Your reef. Your story.
Learn more →The Reef Archive
A living public record of reef health at every site we work. Baseline surveys, restoration footage, and long-term recovery data — accessible to scientists, donors, and the public.
Learn more →Coral & Kin
Ocean literacy for Filipino-American youth in Houston, built with Philippine marine scientists. Connecting the next generation to the reefs their heritage comes from.
Learn more →
The reef belongs to
everyone willing to fight for it.
Donate to fund a reef restoration dive. Adopt a coral. Follow our missions. Your support goes underwater — and we will show you exactly where it lands.
Fund a Reef Rescue Dive Adopt a Coral