Note: The folks at Surf Bus Foundation wrote their own post on their blog--be sure to check out the full update on their site! Link here.

It is the mid-year mark for our LA2050: Make LA the best place to PLAY! grant project. We want to take a time out from our gnarlatiously awesome, salty, and sandy times at the beach to share with everyone how our journey is unfolding.

A project of this magnitude has taken no small amount of planning.

Our original proposal was to bring four LA City park and recreation departments out to the beach for two weeks of surf camp. We met at Green Meadows with coordinators and directors from three other LA parks: Algin Sutton, Trinity, and Cypress. After a frank discussion about research goals and weekly expectations, the biggest question was about time commitment. Can we get the SAME 65 children to commit to summer camp for two weeks in a row? Turns out, nobody knew if we could get the consistency needed to collect the data we wanted.

So we deviated from our original proposal--instead of 10 days of immersion for our kids, we broke the summer up into one-week blocks and invited eight parks out to the beach. Our parks cover all areas of Los Angeles: North Hollywood, East LA, Downtown, and South Central LA. We opened the door for our partners at Algin Sutton, Cypress, and Green Meadows to reach out to other reliable coordinators at Denker, Yucca, and Hazard Parks.

Surf Bus committed to dressing and feeding all our students, park staff, and volunteers with healthy lunches for the duration of our summer calendar. We have learned that staying well hydrated with water and choosing whole foods like simple proteins, fruits, and vegetables creates maximal returns at the beach. We couldn't have had a great summer without our generous partners:

• Whole Foods agreed to give healthy snacks and fruit for 65 people everyday for the week of July 17-21
• Everytable Santa Monica prepared fresh salads and grain bowls for us 3 days/week
• Fellow My LA2050 grantee Altasea and the Cabrillo Aquarium prepared and delivered lunch for our budding marine scientists
• Coolies Surf made special rashguard sets of shorts and tops for the children who do not have suitable bathing suits of their own.
• Winds Bus partnered with Surf Bus to help provide transportation

100% of our Surf Bus volunteers are students who surf on Surf Academy-run middle and high school surf teams. Truly, the project epitomizes Ohana Nalu (family wave) and the Spirit of Aloha. For the week,we worked with Valley Plaza, by day five, we had all forty-five kids calling their instructors "aunty" and "uncle," just like on the Hawaiian islands.

The Surf Bus Foundation is an organization dedicated to the transportation and expansion of scientific knowledge through tools like play and through the help of the LA2050 Challenge grant they were able to develop the Therapeutic Ocean Engagement: Surfing (T.O.E.S.). We have taken photos, kept daily journals, conducted short interviews, and collected anonymous before/after surveys from all students and staff from each park. We are charged with the responsibility doing an exponential amount of good!