Surf and Service

You might not ever think to put the words “surf” and “change the world” together in the same sentence; surfing, you’d say, is a diversion. A sport. A recreational activity. Changing the world? A deliberate act of altruism. No sports, diversions, or recreation involved.

In 2008, surfer dude Sam Bailey changed all of that. Sam had recently returned home from traveling through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. He was jarred by the loss of culture resulting from foreign investment and monopoly in many once small and stable fishing villages. So he did something about it. He created Eco Surf Volunteers.

Now, a vacation isn’t just a vacation for Sam. Sam Bailey has taken the concept of volun-tourism and made it cool. Like surfer-dude cool. Combining volunteer work with tourism, Sam says, is becoming more popular as more people become aware of our environment’s fragile state. “But people want to learn something as well,” Sam says. “It’s not just, ‘Hey let’s go down and build a classroom. It’s about forming a relationship and respect, both with the people and with the culture.’”

The current goal of Eco Surf Volunteers is to use their manpower in Canoa, Ecuador to work with community leader Daniel Velasco to create a local foundation run entirely by native residents. The foundation, which would be targeted at high-school aged natives, hopes to create a four-year program for students to learn to achieve success in the hospitality industry, allowing kids to take ownership of local hostels, restaurants or surf shops. Upon completion of the program, Sam hopes to award each student a full scholarship to an Ecuadorian University.

“I’ve heard that volunteering is ‘so cliché,’ ‘one man’s effort to save the world.’ But hearing the children ask us when we’ll return is not cliché. Seeing the tears well up in the eyes of our volunteers as we drive out of town, kids lining the streets waving good-bye, is definitely not cliché…There’s nothing cliché about what we’re doing. This is all very real,” says Sam.

And change is indeed being made. With help from Sam and his troupe of volunteers, Canoans receive a little more help every time another wave hits the shore.

Surprisingly enough, most of the participants in Sam’s program have never even set foot on a board. “I figured most of our volunteers would come from major surfing backgrounds, but it’s been the other way around. We typically get about 75 percent beginners and 25 percent experienced surfers, which is a great mix…Experienced surfers enjoy the empty line-up while the rest take advantage of daily surf lessons.”

Eco Surf Volunteers is proving, every day, that a vacation doesn’t have to mean sitting around on a beach tanning all day, daiquiri in hand, but also that volunteer work doesn’t have to be—and shouldn’t be—a grueling, unpleasant experience. If you’re willing, it’s not hard to kill those two birds with one stone. “You know, there’s that classic scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams says how Matt Damon could probably say a whole lot about Michelangelo and his…works, but he couldn’t tell him what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. It’s so simple but so true - the learning opportunities made possible from cultural immersion experiences are impossible to re-create,” says Sam.

Swim over to the Eco Surf website to find out more information and apply for one of the Eco Surf Volunteers’ many projects.