I am absolutely ecstatic to be helping out tonight in Kennebunk for Aquaholics Special Surfers Night. I only started surfing about three or four years ago and I can honestly say it has changed my life. So much so that, just as people warned me, it is dictating where I’m living and how I spend most of my time away from work. It’s such a great feeling having a hobby that transitions into a lifestyle.
Half the fun happens out of the water – in the surf community. It’s always nice to get a friendly wave when you’re on the road and someone notices the surfboard on the roof of your car, or when you find someone else with a wetsuit suntan in the middle of the winter.
Tonight is the perfect example of what else happens in the surf community. Sure, it’s great to be able to have a whole beach to yourself and catch 25 waves in a session, but it can be just as fun to help someone… Tonight will be just that kind of night in Kennebunk, but magnified beyond belief. Below you can read all about Special Surfers and how you can help tonight, next month, in August or by simply donating.
Kennebunk, ME For Immediate Release Surf Shop Raises Funds to Bring the Joy of Surfing to Special Needs Children and Teens Special Surfer Night, a nonprofit offering free surfing adventures for special needs children and young adults, announces an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to bring the joys of surfing to hundreds of ‘special surfers’ each summer. Since 2004, Special Surfer Night has ben organized by surfer Nanci Boutet, whose Aquaholics Surf Shop provided the free wetsuits, surf boards, and SUPs. The program, which pairs volunteer teams with special surfers, has become so popular that Aquaholics owner Nanci Boutet created a nonprofit to separate the program from the shop. Newly armed with its nonprofit status, Special Surfer Night is now seeking funding to buy its own surfboards, wetsuits, and SUPs, and get these kids into the water. Every third Tuesday during the summer months, families with children on the autism spectrum [and various other challenges] …come from as far as Toronto, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island to give their kids a chance to enjoy the freedom and exhilaration of surfing. Many of these kids struggle with social and sporting activities. But once a month in June, July, and August, 100 Special Surfers get outfitted in wetsuits, paired with volunteers, and head out into the surf. The parents, families (and many interested bystanders) cheer from the beach and take photographs, as the kids ride the waves, some on their bellies, some on their knees, and some getting all the way to their feet. The volunteers, Boutet explains, benefit as much as the special surfers. Surfer Tom Gale, who’s been volunteering for 4 years, remembers every person he’s worked with, and says, “Each one has some fear going into it, and helping these special kids transform that into excitement, happiness, and joy is such a thrill. They show the surfing ?stoke? in ways that are so honest and unfiltered. They are beaming, hugging you, just totally stoked. And their parents are touched by it all, too.”
…Aquaholics has offered surf lessons since it opened in 2002. One day Maureen Dow, a special education teacher, asked Boutet to take a few kids with autism spectrum disorder out for a surf session. “They had such a great time–and so did I,” Boutet says. She began recruiting volunteers among the local surfer community, enlisting the town’s cooperation, and Special Surfer Night was born. When parents of children with other conditions began calling, the answer was always “Yes, we’ll find a way.”…
