Organization Spotlight — Surfrider Foundation

Love, Care and Consciousness are built into our DNA at DrTung’s.  It’s a concept we weave into every part of our business model — from our products, to our consumers, to our team, to our planet and to all sentient beings.  There are many, many organizations working diligently to make this planet a better place. Some of these organizations have touched our hearts in very deep ways.  To share the amazing work from a few of our favorite groups that we support through donations, we’re spotlighting one incredible organization each month throughout the year.

The 7th organization in our series is…

Surfrider Foundation 

Constant Pressure, Endlessly Applied

The mission…

The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves and beaches, for all people, through a powerful activist network.

Surfrider Foundation believes that everybody deserves access to clean water to surf, swim and play in.

How it started…

For more than 37 years, the Surfrider Foundation has been protecting what you love. What started as a group of surfers that came together to protect Malibu from overdevelopment and pollution has grown into one of the most powerful coastal protection groups in the world.¹ 

Since Surfrider’s first iconic win in 1984 to defend Malibu’s famed surfing break, the organization has worked to preserve the ocean, waves and beaches through a powerful network of volunteers.  Today Surfrider has over 82 Chapters and more than 1 million supporters, volunteers and activists fighting over 100 active campaigns around the country.²  

What they do…

Campaigns

Organize and participate in activist campaigns — lots of them — in 5 different areas of need:  Plastic Reduction, Ocean Protection, Beach Access, Coastal Preservation and Clean Water.  

These campaigns range from the local level all the way up to the federal level.  When a campaign is won, it’s called a Victory.  There have already been 32 Victories in 2022 alone with over 800 Victories in total.  

Programs

Besides the activist campaigns, Surfrider has individual programs to help ensure that marine ecosystems are protected:  

Beach Cleanups:  a program to tackle the ocean litter issue – primarily caused by plastic pollution - through education for action, citizen science, and campaigns. 

Ocean Friendly Gardens:  the program sees landscapes and streets as solutions to water pollution and more. 

Ocean Friendly Restaurants:  this program tackles plastic pollution at its source. One restaurant, one customer at a time, it increases awareness, drives behavior change, and ultimately creates scalable impact to reduce our plastic footprint.

Rise Above Plastics: a program designed to eliminate the impacts of plastics in the marine environment by raising awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution and by advocating for a reduction of single-use plastics and the recycling of all plastics.

Blue Water Task Force (BWTF):  the foundation’s volunteer-run, water testing, education, and advocacy program. Chapters use this program to alert citizens and officials in their communities about water quality problems and to work toward solutions.

The Takeaway...

Protecting our special coastal places is more important than ever.  We are all part of the solution and together we can restore our coastlines, one beach at a time.

You can read more about Surfrider Foundation on their site or follow them on social media.  If their work resonates with you, we encourage you to share their story with your friends and family.  You can also get involved by donating, adding your voice to a campaign, or volunteering. 

As always, do what resonates with you.  One thing we can all do is to take a few moments each day to take care of ourselves and cultivate positive energy.  When you feel positive, you share that feeling with those around you — it’s contagious (in a good way).  Each of us adding positivity to ourselves and spreading it to those around us adds to the collective Love, Care and Consciousness of humankind.  Together we can make a difference to each other, to our environment and to all sentient beings.