City Surf Project

CSP was featured in a national piece on the Today Show a while back, and we couldn’t be more stoked! What a thrill and an honor it is to have the CSP story broadcast to a national audience, and to share our mission of providing equitable access to the coastline while improving the #health & #wellbeing of youth through the transformative power of #surfing! A special thanks to our government partner agencies, including California Coastal Commission, California State Coastal Conservancy, San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF), and Parks California for making our programs possible. And, shoutout to GoPro for helping us capture so much great footage in the water. https://lnkd.in/grq7hkjH

In 2017, CSP co-founders Johnny Irwin and Hunter Chiles were recipients of the Bay Area Jefferson Award, and earlier this week KPIX | CBS San Francisco/Bay Area's Sharon Chin joined us out on program with Booker T. Washington Community Center to see how things are going seven years later. As CSP enters its second decade, we look back at how much we've grown and the impact we've had on so many Bay Area youth. With 3,000 students served and over a dozen local partners, we're stoked to see what the future holds! Thank you, Sharon, for joining us and sharing CSP's story! https://lnkd.in/exPS7PqQ

Meet Tidewater Insurance Brokers, one of CSP's awesome 1% for the Planet partners! Tidewater Insurance Brokers are dedicated to serving people in their communities by way of their mission statement: Pioneering a new way to do insurance through customer advocacy and investment in people. You can check them out at https://lnkd.in/gKJ2uufM Thank you, Tidewater team, for choosing to give back to the planet and selecting CSP as a partner! #1Percent #1PercentForThePlanet #Environment #Stewardship

Come join the Party Wave with us on Thursday, August 1st at Sports Basement in the Presidio! City Surf Project, Salted Roots, The Surfrider Foundation, and Queer Surf are coming together to host an evening of art, community, films, and music! Doors open at 6:00pm, films start around 7:30pm. We’ll have some fun DIY art projects happening during the first hour—bring some items you want to refresh like tote bags or old shirts! Popcorn and beverages will be available too! Tickets are sliding scale and all proceeds will be split evenly among these impactful community organizations. Grab your tickets now at https://lnkd.in/gWyS3EGC

Did you see us on the news last week? In case you missed it, our Executive Director, Johnny Irwin, caught up with Grant Lodes at KRON4 Digital and shared about CSP's mission, history, and how we partner with schools and community organizations to connect Bay Area youth with the ocean. Johnny also speaks to our program model and how our goal is to support youth and meet them where they're at, so they will progress at their own pace and accomplish the goals they set for themselves. "We don't just take youth surfing one time, we want to create surfers." - Johnny Check it out at https://lnkd.in/gvUg2r7C

We're excited to introduce you to Ryan Bayliss, another new team member here at CSP! Ryan joins our team as a Program Coordinator and loves surfing, hiking, wildlife photography, and climbing. He grew up in the East Bay, where he attended community college before pursuing his BS in Psychology at UC Santa Barbara. From a young age, surfing has been Ryan's passion. He would go out at every opportunity and loves surfing with friends and sharing this passion with others. Ryan first discovered CSP while in community college, and always thought it would be a great organization to volunteer with—little did he know he would end up working at CSP! Ryan is most excited to have the opportunity to provide youth with consistent exposure to the ocean, and he can't wait to see kids experience the joy that the ocean brought him growing up. "I think surfing is the perfect combination of exercise and being connected with mother nature. I have always wanted to use surfing as a way to instill confidence, resilience, and a love for the ocean in the hearts of youth. I strongly believe that everybody belongs out in the line up, and knocking down barriers of entry to surfing brings me joy and I hope that I can help these kids discover a lifelong passion that is both physically and mentally rewarding." Thank you, Ryan, we are so stoked to have you on board. Let's give Ryan a proper CSP welcome!

This week, we're introducing not one, but TWO new members of the City Surf Project team, starting with Kasumi! Kasumi Collins, one of our new Program Coordinators, is from Fort Collins, Colorado and grew up playing in lakes, rivers, and mountains. Being in a landlocked state, she always wanted to learn more about the ocean and made her way to University of Hawaii, Hilo to pursue a Biology degree. Kasumi is involved with Queer Surf and Salted Roots and first learned about CSP through them, and she's looking forward to continuing to connect with and work alongside the Bay Area surf community. She's had an eclectic journey (massage therapy, infectious disease lab, intern at Alcatraz) to get to where she is, and we're super grateful that she made her way to CSP! When we asked Kasumi about what she's most excited about moving forward, here's what she shared: "I am most excited about being able to be a part of getting kids out to the ocean, and helping to create positive and empowering connections to the ocean and the outside world." We're grateful to have you on our team, Kasumi! Please join us in giving Kasumi a warm CSP community welcome!

It’s our favorite time of the year... Surf-a-Thon is upon us! Join us for CSP's 7th Annual Surf-a-Thon so we can get we can get more Bay Area youth off their screens and into the ocean this summer. All proceeds raised through our Surf-a-Thon campaign directly support our subsidized summer surf programs! Our goal for this year’s Surf-a-Thon will fully fund 5 weeks of surf camps that will reach up to 75 students throughout the summer of 2024. Support #CSPsurfathon now at https://lnkd.in/gx8dE7y3 And make sure to RSVP and come hang with us on Saturday, June 8th! We'll be celebrating the culmination of Surf-a-Thon with a community surf at Ocean Beach, Stairwell #17 (Beach Chalet) from 10am-12pm, followed by a BBQ in Golden Gate Park from 12-2pm. RSVP now at https://lnkd.in/gdWTA2am

As we wrap up #NationalVolunteerWeek, we want to acknowledge all of the incredible humans (and doggos) who volunteer their time, energy, and expertise to support our programs year-round. From behind the scenes event support to being out on the water with our students, we really could not do any of this without you. Cheers to all our volunteers—past, present, and future! Speaking of future volunteers, if you've been waiting to complete a CSP Volunteer Training, your next chance is on Saturday, May 18th! Please join us as we dive into these important topics: 🔸 Beach and land roles, including equipment, driving, and photography/media support 🔸 Water safety 🔸 Trauma-informed strategies and critical information on CSP participant demographics Register for the training at the link below and email [email protected] with any questions. If you are able, please bring your own wetsuit as you will be getting in the water. Volunteers must be 18 . https://lnkd.in/gvQsU9rG

We're just one week away from our third annual Night of Surf Flicks at Balboa Theater, where we'll be showing films from Perry Gershkow, Adam Warmington, Monica Medellin, Paul Overstrom, and MORE! You definitely don't want to miss out on this night because we'll be premiering a new surf film featuring our very own alumni surf instructor, Dianne Finez! It's going to be a super rad time with live music, raffle prizes, and special Q&A sessions with the directors and film stars. Thank you to our sponsors and partners for stocking our raffle with awesome prizes and making this whole event possible. 🎟 Event tickets: https://lnkd.in/gVSBfahp 🎟 Raffle tickets: https://lnkd.in/gw2EK9HG San Franpsycho | Peach Surf Co. | Sun Bum | ROXY | MeWater Foundation | TOLAGO | Mollusk Surf Shop, LLC