Photo: AccesSurf // SV
If you live in a place not typically fraught with crime, you may see, upon arriving at the beach, surfboards sitting in the beds of trucks, inside cars or on the beach. Their owners may be in the water or elsewhere, trusting in the ideal that people are inherently good and, therefore, don’t steal. Unfortunately, this was not the case recently in Hawaii where two surfboards were stolen out of a truck in St. Louis Heights–a neighborhood in Honolulu adjacent to the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
The two stolen 12-foot surfboards belonged to an organization called AccesSurf–a non-profit that, in the aloha spirit, gives disabled children and families the opportunity to surf and access the beach in a non-restrictive environment. Individuals in wheelchairs, strollers and other assisted devices benefitted from the therapeutic instruction given by AccesSurf. These surfboards were apparently the two most frequently used boards for teaching surf lessons.
AccesSurf released, on their website, the following descriptions of the missing surfboards:
One 12-foot Surftech Soft-top Rescue Surfboard with yellow and red markings. The board also has handles and is marked with “ASH” (AccesSurf Hawaii) in black letters.
One 12-foot white Infinity Adaptive Surfboard. The board is custom made with adaptive handles and padding to assist and protect people with disabilities while surfing. The board is also marked in black with “ASH.”
If you have any information related to the whereabouts of these two surfboards, please contact Programs Coordinator Cara Troy at 808-748-1820 or Mark Marble, Founder of AccesSurf at 808-218-9804.
