Surfrider Youth Campaign Overview

Background We started focusing on the organizational aspects approximately 2 years ago with club criteria, service project outlines and support materials. High lights included focus groups of high students and beta testing of clubs. We currently have 12 high school clubs throughout the US and 2 college affiliates. The high school clubs have signed up over 500 new dues paying members.

Club Criteria We have a defined high school club criteria, and are working to finalize the college club with the help of UNCW. The biggest difference is colleges can raise funds on their own, but HS must be run either through a chapter or SFHQ. 20/20 Annual Project service-materials

Example Elementary Club Activities This past month I had 25 students for 1 hour each week or 4 times a month, doing recycling clean up [papers and plastics] at our school of 70 classrooms. This makes for a lot of paper and plastics. We are currently working on a video contest that tells what our school is doing to help recycle paper. In the month of March we had two meetings -21 members. The students have started their own website to represent the discussed issues and planning for the beach clean-up project in May. Students were given responsibilities: web creator, promoters, photographer, writers, two students will create bags out of old-clothes to use for the beach clean-up instead of using plastic to collect the trash. Another student is in charge of press releases, he's targeting Starbucks and encouraging them to have a recycling box for their sleeves and plastic lids. We discussed reducing our water footprint, and we are planning to watch the documentary No Impact Man, which highlights people's consumption of plastic and trash.

Moving Forward We’re working with MBA program at USC to assist in developing a strategy for long-term growth. This is a great example of taping into colleges for assistance. HS clubs have engaged from partnering on chapter campaigns to regular beach clean ups. However, student clubs only need to identify one service project to do for the school year. This can range from greening their campus to plastic reduction projects. The High school level materials can be found on ChapterNET under the Programs Header along with all the support material. We have secured funding for a youth oriented website and are in the final stages of development. This will serve as the hub for student’s organizing and sharing project information and materials.

New name for the Surfrider Youth Campaign The common thread is “empowerment.” We can keep it simple like "The Youth Project" or "The Youth Initiative" or "Youth in Action". If we wanted to provide more catered offerings, the youth could be involved in the "Rising Tide" or some other expression with a similar meaning. It is more critical to provide ideas & tactical instructions for how to move forward with their involvement (e.g. start a group; run a campaign; invite a speaker; donate; volunteer). Action Initiatives The Edge Young Power Empowering Youth Bright Youth Active Power Active Youth Youth in Action Surfrider New Edge Surfrider Youth Swell Surfrider Youth Current Youthswell YouthWave Newriders Surfrider Building Wave Surfrider Leading Edge Surfrider Nextwave Youthrider Surfrider Breaking Wave Surfrider New Wave

Questions What is your Club, how many, and how long have you existed? What do you do as a Club? And work with your chapter? How can your chapter benefit from working with high school -colleges aged students? Can you think of any campaigns or projects right now where having additional volunteers could assist in increasing your chances of success?