Sunscreen, check. Surfboard, check. Waves, check.
Over 500 community members, including Cal Poly students, alumni and faculty, volunteered in August at Project Surf Camp, a nonprofit organization that provides surfing lessons for kids with special needs. Project Surf Camp partnered with the city of Morro Bay this year, which helped the organization with beach access, a meeting location and marketing.
The nonprofit brings in volunteers from Cal Poly’s recreation, park and tourism administration (RPTA), kinesiology and education departments. These volunteers focus on building confidence and social skills in disabled kids through surf instruction.
This year, the camp brought in about 250 participants, executive director John Taylor said.
Liz Linzmeier, mother of two boys with ADHD, first got involved in the camp in the summer of 2010. It gives her the opportunity to meet other parents with special needs kids, and the volunteers are a big help to giving her kids more self-esteem, she said.
“They don’t push him beyond what’s achievable,” she said. “And this year was the first year (my son) stood up on a surfboard.”
Usually two or three volunteer instructors work with each participant, depending on the kid’s individual needs, said Cal Poly alumna Hilary Linsenbigler, who graduated with a master’s degree in education and has been involved in the camp since last summer. A Cal Poly professor recommended the program to her since she is a surfer and pursuing a career in special education.
“I think the whole philosophy of the program really changes lives,” she said. “It really empowers the kids and the people involved. It’s just a really positive thing to be a part of.”
Linsenbigler said since the special education department is so small at Cal Poly, the camp is well known to its members.
In addition to the education department, the RPTA program also finds interest in the camp because of its recreational therapy aspect.
Marni Goldenberg, a Cal Poly RPTA associate professor, said the camp helps students in the department in gaining leadership skills and working with people of all abilities.
“It all relates to what we do,” she said. “We’re making sure they’re having a good time, giving encouragement and support, helping them actually surf, making sure (they’re) warm. Encouragement is the main thing.”
Goldenberg’s favorite part of the program is the feeling of giving back, she said. On Saturday, she worked with a 28-year-old woman who had never surfed, andd was “so appreciative.”
The RPTA program was introduced to Project Surf Camp by the nonprofit’s executive director, John Taylor, who comes in to introductory classes to talk about surfing and therapeutic recreation, Goldenberg said. Taylor also visits the special education teaching prep program to speak.
Taylor said he will continue to speak at Cal Poly for as long as he can because of the great benefits it brings to the organization.
“We definitely see a response in our volunteers (from the visits),” he said. “One of the groups created our promotional video that we use when we go in to speak to special interest groups.”
Taylor first thought of the idea behind the nonprofit in 2007. He was born with a disability himself, having only one leg, and found the inspiration to support kids with special needs after his experience surfing and competing with the Morro Bay Surf Company, he said. In the summer of 2008, the camp launched and drew 125 campers and has been growing ever since.
The 500 volunteers at the camp this year were the most the nonprofit’s ever gotten, Taylor said. These volunteers, as well as specialists on the camp’s staff who work with kids with various disabilities, helped the 250 campers get on their feet and learn how to surf.
“Each year, we get more and more community members wanting to come out,” Taylor said, “and a number of different organizations coming to help out.”
Many different organizations and institutions including the Morro Bay Police Department, Morro Bay Fire Department, Morro Bay Junior Lifeguard Program and American Karate School helped out at the camps, he said.
“One of the great benefits this year is our formal affiliation with city of Morro Bay,” he said. “It’s been fantastic. We’re such a community-based organization that we cannot survive without community support, both in volunteers and financially.”
As far as how the camp went this year, it did not disappoint, Taylor said.
“Everyday, there’s something that moves me that reminds me, ‘this is why I’m doing this,’” he said. “Whether it’s a family response or the look of joy on one of the campers, there’s always something. There couldn’t be just one (memorable moment) because it happens everyday.”