With the New Year and Christmas just around the corner, most of us are looking forward to spending the holidays with those we care about most: our families. Unfortunately, not everyone has a family. In fact, nearly 400,000 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system in the United States alone.
As you can imagine, growing up without the proper support system can be quite difficult on children. While there are several philanthropic organizations out there that use surfing as means of therapy for physically and mentally disabled folks, it’s much less often you hear of surfing being used to serve children without parents.
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Wesley Stewart, founder of Urban Surf 4 Kids, partnered up with Sikk Shades in order to empower foster children through mentorship and the gift of surfing and the ocean. “Most of these kids are used to being the community project instead of working on a community project, says Wesley. “At Urban Surf 4 Kids, our goal for every orphan and foster child is to remove the ‘underprivileged’ label and replace it with the ’empowered’ label. With the right resources and volunteers, we can do it!” Good on you, Wesley!
