Our Story

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In 1980, Lou and Grisell Dinnella began leading American students to Spain. What started as a language and cultural immersion program grew into something larger — a four-decade legacy of transforming young lives through international experience. Through Bravo Tours, Lou and Grisell safely guided thousands of students and teachers abroad, building deep relationships with host families, schools, and communities across southern Spain.  

Their son, Luis, grew up in that world — traveling to Spain as a boy, watching teenagers arrive nervous and leave changed, seeing firsthand what happens when a young person is dropped into a culture, a language, and a way of life they didn’t know existed. Those experiences shaped Luis’s own path: a doctorate in history, a doctorate in ministry, a career in Catholic education, and a deepening conviction that formation happens not in classrooms but through encounter.  

BravoPlus was born from a simple question: What if every young person could have the experience that shaped us — regardless of what their family can afford?

As a Catholic nonprofit, BravoPlus carries the Dinnella family’s legacy forward in two directions. Through Global Pathways Málaga, we bring the same transformative cultural immersion to underserved students who would never otherwise have the chance to travel abroad — an expression of the Church’s call to serve those on the margins. Through Walking the Way, we extend that mission into the spiritual life, taking Catholic adolescents on pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago at a moment when the Church is losing an entire generation of young believers.