Surf Ohio Festiki 2010 – proud to again support Surfrider Foundation

Wow! The 2nd Annual Surf Ohio Festiki is exactly one week away – August 14th at Old River Park. In just seven days Dayton, Ohio becomes a surf music mecca and the epicenter of tiki and tropical fun.

But there is one serious note to it all that I want to share now. As Surf Ohio has done since its inception, Festiki 2010, too, will spiff a donation to the non-profit Surfrider Foundation, to support their multi-faceted, worldwide mission of working to protect our oceans, waves and beaches. Surf Ohio is pleased to help this great organization for many reasons, not the least of which is its well-organized yet grassroots, membership-based work that is making a difference every single day and literally “coast to coast.” I encourage you to check them out for yourself at www.surfrider.org.

As many of you that attended the inaugural Festiki learned, one of the Surfrider’s very focused environmental efforts near and dear to my heart is the “Rise Above Plastics” initiative. The US alone produces over 24 billion pounds of single use plastic packaging a year. At present, something like 3-5% of all plastics are recycled. What happens to the rest of it? Did you know that in certain areas of the ocean, plastic particles outnumber the plankton – a food source ingested by many whales and other sea life – by 46 to 1? If you remember anything from Biology 101, the end result is not pretty, on many accounts.

Seeing as I am a poster child for right-brainers, stats don’t typically light my fuse. Though numbers paint a truly alarming picture, it is admittedly a personal experience if not also somewhat selfish motive that led me to support Surfrider. While vacationing at New Smryna a few years ago, we were stunned to find that our rented condo’s beach was littered as far as the eye could see with plastic flotsam of all shapes and sizes, including hundreds upon hundreds of single use plastic bottle caps. You can easily picture how many of the bottles there were around, as well. Not conducive to Kodak moments.

Worse still, we had to keep our kids from playing in the seaweed (at that young age, they thought it was fun to make wigs out of it), because of plastic SYRINGES washed up among the debris. I doubt that NSB has all that many addicts hanging out on the beach, so have to believe we were dealing with illegally dumped waste from cruise ships and other seagoing vessels. We collected what we could into a kitchen trash bag from the condo until we realized the folly and very real danger of our potentially getting pricked by a needle.

Not quite the lasting vacation memories we were hoping for. The enormity of it all coupled with the all too real risk to my family made me realize – far more than any stats and pie-charts could – that helping on some larger scale was a must.

Surfrider takes its well-researched, global-scale approach to many such challenges down to the grassroots level, where all real action takes place. But even if your family is like ours, and don’t live near enough to a coastline to pitch in on the foundation’s myriad of effective programs and initiatives, Surf Ohio asks that you become a Surfrider member and, while at Festiki, make a generous donation to an organization that works diligently to ensure we all can experience a day, a vacation, a life at the beach the way it should be enjoyed, in its natural state of beauty. The stats on protecting our oceans and water DO show that one day your life will truly depend on it. Did someone say “BP”? Surfrider staff and members mobilized on that disaster, too, and among other ways, Surfrider remains involved in the process of proper hazmat training effort so that cleanup crews can safely and effectively continue their arduous efforts on the Gulf Coast.

So come by the Surf Ohio HQ tent at Festiki next Saturday and ask for your choice of a free “SO” oval sticker for your ride or a temporary Surf Ohio Tiki Bro tattoo (we have highly trained experts on hand to apply them with a wet sponge). Similar to what we did at the inaugural Festiki last year, all Surf Ohio asks in exchange is that you consider supporting Surfrider in two great ways – by dropping a donation of any size into our Surfrider fund collection jar, and/or consider joining Surfrider as a dues-paying member. We will have “Rise Above Plastics” info as well as plenty of Surfrider Foundation membership mailers conveniently on hand.

Meanwhile, here are three easy steps to consider provided by Surfrider that the Kaplan Family now follows to reduce our plastic footprint:

REDUCE- When possible, buy your food and other products in bulk to reduce the amount of packaging.

REUSE – Cut down on single-use plastic grocery bags and water bottles by buying reusable bags and bottles.

RECYCLE – Make sure and recycle each and every plastic item you use!

Mahalo for your support of Surf Ohio and of the Surfrider Foundation. See YOU at Festiki 2010!