Just pick up one piece every time you surf. It’s so easy! Photo: Shaahina Ali
The Victoria Theatre located in San Francisco hosted the Save The Waves Coalition as they concluded their 7th annual Save The Waves Surf Film Festival. At first, it seemed business as usual for a surf screening. A sea of Patagonia hats, sharp beards, babes, all your legends, your shoulda been there bros and little grommits running around looking for their other little grom bros.
As I walked around the pre-show festivities, I wanted to get a feel for the donors, supporters and sponsors. Most of my professional career has been spent as a fundraiser for campaigns and NPO’s. Over the years I’ve developed a nose for sussing out a room. Distinguishing the binary, the self-congratulatory tools, from the selfless supportive folks, folks that are core to the values and mission of the organization. Thankfully, in this crowd it was overwhelmingly the latter. Evidence? In my conversation with Ted Witt of Clif Bar, he shared that “[Clif Bar] supports Save The Waves because they are true to protecting the places we play.” He proudly boasted that Clif Bar was the first sponsor of the Save The Waves Film Festival, beaming as if he was the lucky bloke to stumble upon a righthand point break in Coolangatta and name it Snapper.
There I was, knee-deep in the surf industry enviro-scene, filled with love and beard envy. I was super stoked that the entirety of the conversations I had were with conscious, socially minded people. The fish tacos were caught sustainably by Hook Fish Co, the drinks poured into reusable tin cans. These were easy choices the Save The Waves Coalition film festival and its sponsors made. And it got me thinking. There are roughly 4,362 surfers at any given time at any given California break. What if every one of them made a choice to do something as simple, yet powerful as picking up one piece of trash when leaving the beach?
The theme of the night’s films were succinct and clear across the board: break barriers, give back to the community and protect what you love as a surfer. Now we get to the part of the article where I discuss the time where I cried that evening. If you have seen Denali you’ll get it. If not, please do so (after you’re done reading this). Denali had zero shots of surfing but captured everyone’s heart. “There was this really smart scientist guy who thought that people can learn a lot from dogs. He said that when someone you loved walked through the door, even if it happened five times a day, you should go totally insane with joy.” Now imagine if we had a full world of humans as stoked as our beloved four legged best friends.
“The surfing is just a bonus: it’s the people, it’s the cause,” Adrianne Moore said to me during intermission. She and the crowd of six other women who hollered during the films louder than any crew in the building. She embodied the event’s vibe of “let’s have both some fun AND give a damn.” Adrienne had come to support Bianca Valenti and Sachi Cunningham, proud of these two incredible surfers both demonstrating their love of surfing as they destroy often deeply ingrained gender stereotypes. “This isn’t just point break perfection film festival or bikini butt postcard shots, these are films about real surfers loving the ocean and their community. Surfers have a hive mind community mentality” She said. I couldn’t agree more.
We are a community of lovers and if you’ve read this far, I love you for that. And the Save The Waves Film Festival inspired this idea: What if we can show how much we, as surfers, love our community by picking up one piece of trash? So we now have #TheInertiaChallenge, every time you leave the beach, take one piece of trash with you. When you see someone do it, holla at them, hug them (if they are cool with it), high five them (more socially a-ok), give them a beer (if you keep beers in your truck. I do, and I make friends easily that way). Whatever you do, show them love. We are going to be combing the internet, specifically Instagram ,under the hashtag #TheInertiaChallange
We have choices right? We can decide instead of just taking a shit a day, we give two shits. We can decide to support companies that support advocacy groups who protect what we love, seemingly endless barrels located in far from home and fun to get to destinations.
Learn more by visiting SaveTheWaves.org
