As most of you are aware, this year's Day At The Beach with the kids from Father Joe's Village, was cancelled due to a surge in COVID with their kids.
Rather than cancel our final DATB for 2022, we reached out to members of our community service network, Rick Takahashi, and Club member Steve Sullaway, to find kids that needed a Day At The Beach! After all we had the permit, the volunteers and most importantly, our deep rooted commitment to help youth.
Our good friends Rick and Steve, took the ball, and Man O' Man did they run with it. They ran hard, and they ran fast, all the way past the goal post and into touchdown territorry. Rick and Steve connected us to a phenominal non profit called, "The Hope Leadership Academy", https://hla.org/, that provides mentorship to inner city kids, whose motto is, "We believe mentorship changes the world one kid at a time".
On Saturday, August 20th we had the pleasure and honor of hosting approximately 30 of these amazing kids, all of whom came to surf, and surf they did.
Rather than me attempt to tell all of you, how sucessful the day was, please see below an email we recieved from HLA Director of Volunteers and Mentors, Kyle Younes.
Hi Rick and Bill!
On behalf of HLA, we want to thank you and your whole team with all our hearts for giving our students such a special and fun surfing day experience. It's always our mission to fill their lives with amazing memories like these and to surround them with positive role models so they can be raised up to become successful future leaders full of character, faith and love. Thank you so much, for helping make our mission a reality last Saturday.
There were so many smiles that day. When I asked the students on our drive back if they had fun and would like to do this event again, they all said "YEEEEEEESSSS!!!!!!" Please know you blessed them so much and they were so grateful and had the most amazing time. We can't thank you all enough for working so hard to serve all our students with surfing and for feeling us such delicious food:D Everyone was so kind, loving and encouraging and we pray God blesses you back in so many encouraging ways.
If it could work out, we would absolutely love to do this again with you guys. We felt so honored and grateful that you considered us for your event. Special thanks to Bill, Chris, Jim, Rob, Tim, CB and all the surf instructors for everything! A very special thanks to Rick for recommending us and for sharing all your awesome photos with us. I forwarded those over to all the parents and they said, "Thank you so much!" PS- thank you so much Rick for letting me borrow your electric bike to park and retrieve our van, lol. Sincerely, that was a humongous help and blessing!
Sincere Thanks, Much Love & God Bless,
Kyle Younes
Director of Volunteers & Mentors
Phone: 858-205-7942
Website: www.hla.org
We now have the opportunity of spreading love, surfing and Aloha thru DATB, with Special Needs Surfers, Father Joe's kids, YStrong Girls, and now, the kids of Hope Leadership Academy.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our volunteers, without whom, we could not host these wonderful events we call Day At The Beach.
There is no particular order or ranking with the following list of volunteers. If I have forgotten someone who volunteered last Saturday, I hope you know it's not intentional.
I would like to first thank Robb and Karen Luscombe for being such amazing DATB Directors and helping bring our August event back from the dead, thank the Directors and the amazing kids of HLA, if it were not for them, there would not have been an August DATB. Thank you CB for always being at "Our Spot" at the Shores in the early hours of the morning, helping unload the gear out of the truck and keeping me company until it's light enough to set up, thank you Rick Takahasi for always showing up to set up and surf with the kids and this year connecting us to HLA, thank you Jason Tuschen for letting us use your truck to transport our tents, tables, chairs and grill and for surfing with the HLA kids, thank you always Chris Nyhan for transporting boards to and from the beach and surfing with the kiddos, thanks Christina and Nick Torres for buying all the food, prepping it and serving it for this event and Nick for surfing with the kids, thank you "Clutch Cargo" for your service on the grill, thank you Racquel, AKA "Rocky" for putting so many smiles on kids faces and making their dreams come true, thank Penelope, "Penny" Nagel for making and delivering all the incredible goody bags for the kids, thank you Andy Prado for everything you do for kids and the Club and being Freaking Andy Prado, thank Craig Beck and his son Taylor for coming down surfing with the kids and giving the Club a Bro deal on boards for the kids to surf on, thank you, "Doc" Oliver for getting in the water and surfing with our newest chargers, special thanks always to John Movious for serving up such sweet surf tunes at all our events, thank "Da Boyz" i.e. Christian and Warren Zvetina, Lee, Collin, Jake, Choppers for surfing with the HLA kids, thank Jason Peasley for taking care of all of the food at the last DATB, thank Jeff Morrow for coming down and, well for being the best Jeff on the planet, thank Steve Sullaway whose DNA is all over this event and YStrong Girls, thank you Jim Neri who came and surfed and surfed and surfed some more, thank you Adam Bloomberg for surfing and helping with set up, thank you Tim Graham for being there and getting kids into waves, thank you Chip Hasley for coming down creating smiles, thank you Chuck Davey for getting in the water, surfing and showing us how it's done, thank you Valerie Frankel for coming down and being an awesome surf instructor, thank you Mark Feighan for always coming to DATB and giving kids the best memories ever, and thank you Starman and Robin for being with us in spirit and giving us the tools to cook, literally as in tongs, spatula, etc.
I am certain, that I have forgotten many who came, volunteered their time, and helped make this DATB so incredibly special. My sincere apologies to those of you not on this list.
From the bottom of my heart thank you all for making this DATB so wonderfully special.
Aloha and Mahalo,
Bill "Brasil" Fitzmaurice
UNSUNG VOLUNTEER - Tom Tweed
I hope all of you see that this is comment is an edit. I am editing my post, because I realized, that I did forget a really really really important Day At The Beach volunteer, and Club member, Tom Tweed.
Not only a gentle giant of a man, literally and figuratively, Tom Tweed has, and continues to volunteer his time for Day At The Beach, and other Club community service events.
Thank you Tom for always being there and big apologies for adding you to "The List"!