So Much More than a Surf Session
Since 2015, MeWater has positively impacted the lives of more than 5,000 underserved youth in the San Francisco Bay Area with a focus on the neighborhoods of Bayview, Hunters Point, Visitation Valley and beyond. Our work continues to expand all across the Bay Area!!!
MeWater youth are educated on the environment, provided mental health support and exposed to the outdoor San Francisco community in ways that have never been available to them prior to joining MeWater. MeWater’s unique model also includes families in our events, often times providing families with their very first surfing and camping experience together.
MeWater holds more than 40-50 daily outings every year, with an average of 20-25 kids at each outing.
MeWater hosts more than 2-3 weeks of overnight camping/surfing events each year, for both youth and and their families. These multi-day camping trips include a more extensive environmental and mental health education and skill development component, overnight camping on Mt. Tamalpais and Samuel P Taylor Park, and conclude with a beach surfing day. Definitely a highlight for all involved, creating lifelong memories outside in Mother Nature!!!
Our Community partners
MeWater has expanded its community partners in just five years to include:
City of Dreams
APACC
SF CASA
San Mateo CASA
Tenderloin Boys and Girls Club
Sunnydale Boys and Girls Club
Friends of the Children SF
Hunter's Point Family Community Center
San Francisco Mayor's Youth Employment and Education Program
Edgewood Center for Children and Families
Project Avary
Hope SF
Youth Vs. Apocalypse
Huckleberry Youth Services
College Track SF
St. Raphael’s Schhol
Outreach off the beach
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have provided more than 5,000 meals to our MeWater Families facing food insecurity.
Even when we are not in the water with our kids or hosting overnight camps, we interact with our kids each week through food distribution, at home visits and outreach. MeWater has a volunteer team of more than 100 members providing a range of services from mental health support to surfing instruction and environmental education.
MeWater serves kids ranging in age from 5-18. It is is a 100% volunteer driven organization with every dollar raised going straight to support our underserved youth.
Many of our program participants are youth of color who have faced adverse childhood challenges including abuse or violence in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods; parental poverty or incarceration; undocumented status; underperforming at schools; and lack of access to physical and/or mental health services.
MeWater camps provide a clean, safe, and positive outdoor recreational and educational opportunity for the community and builds stewards of the environment, with our youth engaged and inspired to pursue higher education in areas of environmental preservation.
MeWater relies on research-based practices proven to build protective factors. For example, the social development model shows that kids who develop competency in skills and who receive positive reinforcement will develop stronger bonds and have fewer health-risk behaviors as adults. The constant stressors of under resourced communities often result in behavioral and learning problems, an increase of social isolation in its members, and a need for realistic opportunities that enable young people to prosper.
MeWater camps provide these opportunities and where extra social support is needed, MeWater's inter-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals, can offer the necessary emotional support and social guidance that oversubscribed social services are often unable to provide.