Aloha Everyone,
The past few months have been an amazing time for Mauli Ola. Mauli Ola Foundation became a national program. We held a 22 stop Cystic Fibrosis Surf Experience Tour, A major Lei Day Music Festival concert, a sold out golf tournament, numerous fundraisers, created a signature hat line and visited more than 20 children’s hospitals, received a few grants, been nominated for the 2010 Surfer Poll Award, “Agent of Change”, we were included on a wine label and even started an online music magazine. It has been an incredibly fast paced growth. We have accomplished more than ever imagined, all in the name of sharing the love of surfing with people with genetic disorders as a natural treatment and creating a healthy and positive environment for everyone involved. My hats off to everybody, we rock.
Surf Experience Days
We officially kicked off our National Surf Experience Tour on May 1st at San Onofre State Beach. The event was a tremendous way to start out the tour with Josh Baxter and his crew at Summer Soul Surf Camp. The water was freezing but the pros like Sunny Garcia, Kala Alexander, Gavin Beschen and Buttons Kaluhiokalani got the kids out there and warmed up everyone’s hearts. Click HERE for photos from the event. To view photos from other Surf Experience Days, click HERE.
“I am a member of the Mauli Ola Foundation because there is nothing more rewarding then helping these children through surfing.” Sunny Garcia, ASP 2000 World Champ
Lei Day Music Festival
The Surf Experience day on May 1st was just the beginning. After the SED we all went to Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista, San Diego for a Lei Day music concert to raise awareness about the connection between CF and Surfing. It was an amazing show in a beautiful venue. The night was highlighted by Carly Lindmeier’ beautiful words about living with CF and what surfing means to her, then into the headlining band Katchafire from New Zealand. A great time was had by all. Click HERE for photos of that event.
National Tour 2010
The tour started back up the next weekend in Santa Cruz, followed by events at Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, North San Diego, before heading out for the 27 day road trip on a tour bus to travel 8,500 miles across the country. We held surf events in Port Aransas, TX, Galveston, TX, Cocoa Beach, FL, Jacksonville, FL, Charleston, SC (click HERE for news clip), Virginia Beach, VA, although Hurricane Earl shut us down for our Montauk event, the tour was a tremendous success. We also visited over 600 patients at Children’s Hospitals across the United States. On the tour were: Gavin Beschen, Shawn” Barney” Barron, Kala Alexander, Kalani Robb, Kealii Mamala, Kainoa McGee, Morgan Faulkner, Makua Rothman, Nissen Osterneck and Hans Hagen. A special thanks for these guys’ time and efforts as ambassadors of surfing across the country. Their professionalism and kindness impressed everyone they came across. True hero’s to so many, their efforts resembled, in my humble opinion, those of Duke Kahanamoku over 100 years ago. Good work boys! True aloha spirit. It is only appropriate that our tour actually ends in Hawaii with 3 more Surf Experience Days, Dec 5th at Waikiki, Dec 6th at Bellows (our first event helping Cancer patients), and Dec 12 at Haleiwa.
The tour was made possible by everyone’s donations and in particular title sponsors Ambry Genetics and Flexfit. Other sponsors included, A-Med Healthcare, Volcom, Billabong, Etnies, Rusty, O’Neill, Quiksilver, Roxy, Electric Visuals, Skull Candy, CF Voice, Hansen’s, Lost, Cliff Bar, Sector 9, GoPro, Elite Flyers, Rosenthal Vineyard – Malibu Estate and Da Hui. Thank you all for believing in us and making this happen, without your support it couldn’t have been made possible.
The CF Voice was also a part of this year’s tour as they hosted a National contest consisting of CF patients sending in video’s of themselves trying to surf in various way, while lobbying for an all expenses trip to San Diego to partake in our Mission Beach SED, which was held on Sept 18th. Justin from South Carolina won and had a wonderful time including going surfing and to Sea World with Kalani Robb. We plan to team up with the CF Voice next year to hold a similar contest that might end with the winner going to Hawaii to partake at our events held on Oahu each December.
“I have never been a part of something so meaningful in my entire life” Kalani Robb (Pro Surfer)
MOF Classic and Signature Hat Line
We have also launched a new signature hat line by Flexfit. The hats will be ready in spring 2011 and consist of Mauli Ola Members: Sunny Garcia, Kala Alexander, Kalani Robb, Gavin Beschen, Barney, Carly Lindmeier, Buttons Kaluhiokalani, Makua Rothman, Nissen Osterneck and Kainoa McGee. These hats are awesome and the proceeds will go towards future surf experience days.
Lava Music Magazine Online In Full Effect
This year we also saw the creation of Lava Magazine. This is a music magazine that is to help us raise awareness about the Mauli Ola Foundation’s mission. This effort is headed up by Grammy Award winner and Mauli Ola Board Member Vic Garbarini. Vic has worked in the music industry for decades, and has written for Rolling Stone, Playboy, the NY Times, and Revolver Magazine. Vic was the senior editor at Musician Magazine in the 1980’s and Sting even asked him to put together his Blue Turtles band. Vic has garnered support from numerous heavy weight journalists in the music industry, including Rolling Stones’ Charles Young. This has been a purely volunteer effort from these guys and they are really doing awesome. Check out the wonderful pieces and expert writing. www.lava-mof.org. Thank you Vic and crew.
3rd Annual Surfers For Cystic Fibrosis Gold Tournament, August 2010
This year we also had a tremendous golf tournament held at Monarch Links. It was basically a who’s who of the surf world and biotech industries. An unusual mix of people that saw everyone have a great time. This was a sold out event….to put this in perspective, we had 28 players our first year, about 64 last year and 144 this year. Amazing growth. Thank you, Steve Swanson for putting on such a successful event. Of special note was Kalani Robb’s amazing 98 foot putt to win $5,000, which he later donated back to the foundation. Thanks Kalani! All funds raised, approximately $25,000 went to the Surf Tour.
Don Bigelow Photos From Event
Jen Ho Chen Photos From Event
Soren Heil Photos From Events
"I feel like I'm part of a big family with Mauli Ola. Being a part of this family and helping so many kids and their families has helped me truly appreciate my friends, my family, life in general and so much more." Kala Alexander (Professional Hawaiian Surfer)
Other News and The Future
We just received the SIMA Humanitarian Grant (Surf Industry Manufacturer’s Association) for the second year. Disney gave us a nice grant and Variety Magazine has also just awarded us a grant to use towards our Southern California events. These are a great honor and we are very appreciative.
We were just notified that the Mauli Ola Foundation has been nominated for the “Agent of Change” award at the 2010 Surfer Poll Awards, which will be held for the first time on the North Shore of Oahu at Turtle Bay Resort on Monday, December 6th. We as a foundation could not be more excited to be nominated for such a prestigious award.
We have also been selected as a beneficiary of the Volcom Give Back Series. The Give Back Series is an awesome program Volcom put together to help the community, environment, and humanitarian efforts. We are fired up that we were chosen for this year’s program. The V-Co boys have designed a Men, Women’s and Children’s tee that will be in stores in March 2011. Volcom has been a huge supporter of Mauli Ola since the beginning and just recently helped us out of a jam while in NYC on the National Surf Tour. ;) We appreciate Volcom’s support. Looking forward to getting my shirt, I have seen the mock up’s and they are sick. Thank you Volcom.
On Oct 2nd we were invited to the Rosenthal Winery in Malibu, CA for the debut of the new 2009 Surfrider Chardonnay which features Sunny Garcia on the label. Mauli Ola Foundation was also being recognized for helping support kids with genetic disorders through surfing. Sunny Garcia, 6 time Triple Crown champ and ASP World Champion is on the 2009 Surfrider wine bottle and could not have been more honored. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the wine will go toward the Mauli Ola Foundation Surf Experience Days. Sunny, Caleb (CF Patient) and I all spoke to the caring and generous crowd about cystic fibrosis and the Mauli Ola Foundation and later raised nearly $10,000 for our National CF Tour in 2011. Sunny Garcia donated a board to the event which raised $1,625 and the foundation offered a Pearl Jam guitar signed by the entire band which raised $5,850. It was a great day with a bunch of great people. If you get a chance, I suggest buying a bottle, it was delicious. Thank you very much to the Rosenthal Family, and The Malibu Estate. Photos From Event.
I want to send out a special thanks to the Mauli Ola staff and Board of Directors for all their hard work and dedication: Thank you to Nicole Dunlop, Bobby Serna, Todd Morgan, Steve Swanson, Dougie Tanaka Jr., Kala Alexander, Kainoa McGee, Cynthia Banuelos, Mick O’Brien, Vic Garbarini, Jeff Booth, Jason Steris, Curtis Wheeler, Kurtis Glade, Kalani Robb, Don Bigelow, Doug Silva and Cynthia Cendreda. Again, this has been a purely volunteer effort made by these folks. Awesome people and I am proud to have them as part of Mauli Ola. Thank you!
Also a special thanks to Charles Dunlop and Ambry Genetics for being the bulk financial donor that makes Mauli Ola a reality.
“The surf schools have played such an important part in the continued success of our Surf Experience Days Program. Mahalo to all of them for sharing the joy of surfing and helping Mauli Ola turn Cystic Fibrosis patients into Surfer Patients”. Bobby Serna- Mauli Ola Surf Experience Director
2010 Surf Schools
· Brendan Petticrew-WRV Surf Camp
· Buttons Kaluhiokalani-Buttons Surf School
· Chris Barnum and Josh Baxter Summer Soul Surf Camp
· Craig Carroll-RonJon Surf School
· East End Surf-Jeremy Gosvenor
· Eli Howard Surf School
· Eric Nelson – Quiksilver Surf Camp
· Kia Dilling-Sol Surfers Surf Camp
· Morgan and Mary Faulkner-Texas Surf Camps
· Richard Schmidt Surf School
· Rick Gehris-Surfari Surf School
· Robbie French – Perfect Day Surf Camp
· Stephen “Slidawg’ Chew – Laguna Beach Surf School
· Sunrise Surf Shop
"It's been an honor working with Mauli Ola and these kids. I never had the chance to give back as much I would have liked to and it feels great to be part of something so special. Anytime I can help or contribute, I will." Michael Ho (Legendary Professional Hawaiian Surfer)
Things to look for in the near future are:
· Promotional DVD
· Mauli Ola music CD
· MOF Coloring book (awesome for hospital visits).
· A very important thing we plan to implement soon is to make our financials available on our website, so that everyone can see where the donations and funds raised are used.
· Hawaiian Tourism Authority: They are adding Mauli Ola Hawaii events to the calendar and maps that tourist get this winter.
Events in the near future:
· Oct 23rd Project Save our Surf (Click HERE for details)
· Nov. 12th to Dec 20th Triple Crown of Surfing: Mauli Ola will have a write up in the program.
· Dec. 3rd to 5th, Hawaiian Film Festival at the Polo Fields at Mokule’ia on Oahu’s North Shore. Mauli Ola is a beneficiary this year, as well as the North Shore Lifeguards Association.
· 2010 Surfer Poll Awards, Dec. 6th at the Turtle Bay, Oahu’s North Shore
· Dec 5th Waikiki SED for CF
· Dec 6th Bellows Beach SED for Cancer Patients
· Dec. 12th Haleiwa SED for CF.
Mahalo, James Dunlop
President and Executive Director
To make a donation to the foundation to help support surf experience days, please visit us HERE .
Thank you for your support!
Any questions or comments please email info@mauliola.org
