Day 4: Effort (boys)

Today is Thursday and the fourth day of Surf N' Serve. The end of this week will be the closing of one of the best weeks we have all experienced. Today we went out to catch a few waves in the morning. Then during our break we played one game of a good old duck-duck-goose. After the game we headed back for the waves. Day by day we all are improving and becoming better surfers. Today's word of the day is effort, and would say we all put our effort in order to catch as many waves as possible.

Soon after surfing we prepared into going to mission trails to do our service part of the day. We arrived and met Ranger Mel and he told us some history of the park. It was really interesting to learn about the history and changes that the park has gone through. Our job for the day was to fill in ditches and potholes with granite rocks. We all put in a lot of effort into filling them up. After working we all felt good that we all put out a helping hand to the mission trails and made a difference.

Efrain G, class of 2013

Day 3: Determination (Boys)

1st the worst, 2nd the best, 3rd the golden eagle bird. One of my pre-school nursery rhymes.Well, today was golden in the chilly waters. We went far out to learn about breaking points, impact zones, and even having the beautiful sight of a dolphin pod! It was an awesome experience interacting with the instructors and not freezing in the wet suit at the same time. We caught a load of waves and saw some jellyfish, crazy to say but one even landed on my board. But hey, today was awesome with plenty of surfers surfing and staying totally stoked. Even though today's surf group was pretty big, but we still learned fast and well!

And that is what I call determination, the determination to learn and most of all, have fun.

After hours of surfing, which seemed like minutes, we drove all the way to the US-Mexico border for our community service. Our task today was to pull weeds out of the garden, for the protection of native plants that still grow in San Diego. We learned so many types of weeds and their names! I even said, "Hey, that grows in my back yard!" The sun was not too hot, though when I came home my mom said my face was red as a tomato! I know I put a lot of sunscreen on my face, maybe 50 isn’t enough!!! All in all it was a great day of surfing and weeding weeds and us boys are having a blast!

-William Q, Class of 2013

Surfer that stays stoked!

Day 2: Challenge (week 2 Boys)

Today was the second day of Surf N' Serve for the boys and we were all excited to jump back into the water and catch some waves. Today's word of the day is "Challenge." One of the biggest challenges we faced today was riding a wave. We did way better then the first day. We also played a new game called octopus tag, which was quite a work out. We also learned how to body surf properly. Then we surfed for another hour and were able to ride a lot more waves, thanks to our wonderful surf instructor’s at PB Surf School. http://www.pacificbeachsurfshop.com/. They are honestly the best instructors ever!!

After surfing, Ms. Biersbach set up a Beach Cleanup for our service project. She told us that the person who collects the most trash would get a prize. This made picking up trash really fun and competitive. We ran around looking for trash and trying to fill up our trash bags. We walked and ran for over four miles! This made us exhausted. We can't wait to go back in the water and help the community out tomorrow.

Jesus (Chuy), Class of 2013

Day 1: Attitude (Boys week 2)

Today was the first day of Surf n' Serve! Even though we had a slow start everything sped up once we hit the water. The word of the day today was attitude. This word fit perfectly for our first day because we were all a bit tired in the morning but through everybody’s great attitude it turned into a good day. Surfing was very fun because all of the guys and the instructors got along very well.

Though we had a small setback when a stingray stung me, we were still able to go to the soup kitchen and even ate lunch in the guard tower before our service. Even though I was in pain I still kept a great attitude because I had a good group of friends with me through the whole thing. We were even making jokes as I sat there soaking my food in boiling hot water.

After a tiring surf session we went to the soup kitchen to help set things up and give food out. It was a lot of fun interacting with the people there. It was also a lot of fun setting everything up, even though we were a bit late because of the stingray incident. This experience brought a different perspective to our eyes as we saw these people that did not have much but had such a great attitude for everything that they did have, even if it was something very little.

Erik H, Class of 2012

Day 5: Future

We closed off the week with a long surf and then some hiking at Cabrillo National Monument. I still can’t believe thisweek is already over! I am exhausted, ready for a weekend of sleep, and have successfully sprained my toe..but I still couldn’t be happier. The students have learned to surf, enjoyed serving the San Diego community, and become a close-knit support groupfor each other. All in all, I would say week 1: Surf N’ Serve was a success. Here is a quote from astudent about her experience: (more quotes will be coming later this week) Hope you have enjoyed the blog and thank you to everyone for their support! I couldn’t have made this possible without all your love, generosity, and kind thoughts.

Now onto week 2…..wish me luck!- Juliana

Kelly M: “Surf N' Serve meant a lot for me. I was able to try something new with surfing and help out my community. I had never been so tired at the end of a day but it was all worth it. I will remember this experience for the rest of my life and will continue surfing because I had never enjoyed or been so determined to ride a wave before. I am really sad it is over but glad I got the opportunity to do this.”

Madeleine K: Surf N' Serve is one of the greatest programs I have participated in. I have found a sport that I am truly passionate about, I don't think I can go another day without surfing. I also came to a realization that volunteer work can be a lot of fun we had the opportunity to help out the community, learn about our projects, and about one another too.

Day 4: Effort

As the fourth day of camp, today was one of the best days. Ms. Biersbach came out to the ocean and we all made sure we caught some good waves. After all the practice we have done all week we were finally able to get up and stand up on our own. It felt great to do this because all week we relied on our surf instructors, but not anymore we are real surfers now. Being the great surf teachers they are Kiley and Seamus taught us about the ocean's fetch, winds both onshore and offshore, and that the best kinds of waves have a wider frequency between one another. It was just a great day for surfing and the waves were beautiful.

The word of the day was effort. We definitely used a lot of effort to complete our volunteer work. We went to Mission Trails and worked with Ranger Mel. Our job was to tear open and spread out gravel bags alined on the street to prevent streams of rain from crushing plants and debris traveling to the rivers. It was a hot day, we were fully covered with sunscreen,

shades, and hats. Like always we had a friendly competition between teams. Each team worked on a road side and the first to finish the bags won slurpees. All of us were fatigued from a great morning of surfing but regardless how tired we were, both teams put in a lot of effort to make the roads better. We all won and earned our slurpees, we really enjoyed them on the car ride home. As the camp comes closer to an end it's great to see how close we have grown to each other, how much we, our surfing improvemnts, and the difference we can make in our community.

Madeleine K, class of 2012

Day 3: Determination

Today was Wednesday and it’s the third day of Surf N’ Serve. The word of the day was determination, which helped us to try harder facing the waves and actually surfing for at least a few seconds. It was a very SPECIAL day because we had an amazing person surfing with us in the water. It was Ms. Biersbach! It was so weird watching our Preuss teacher surf and sometimes even struggle like us because sometimes students see teachers as aliens without a life haha. With Ms. Biersbach by our side, we were ALL able to stand on the surf board many times. Surfing has been a challenge for the past three days but we have also been able to show that we are strong girls.

After taking a quick wash we headed to Imperial Beach to clean a State park near the border of Tijuana. At first we were exhausted from all of the surfing we had done in the morning. But then when we arrived at the State Park, we became energetic and worked hard to get rid of all of the weeds. When it was time to leave we didn't even want to.Even on our walk back to the car we would see weeds and and pick them. This day was just great because of Ms. Biersbach and because today's

community service was the best!

Karla C., Class of 2012