In honor of this week’s Giving Tuesday, we’re looking back at all the ways MSG has given back to the community over 2019.
Donations to Non-Profits
We are happy to be able to support non-profit organizations, on Maui and the mainland, with donations in 2019.
Kelea Foundation
We’re excited to announce that a portion of all the surf lesson bookings in December will be donated to the Kelea Foundation. Kelea Foundation is a Maui based non-profit dedicated to making sports & the ocean accessible to all people. Kelea Foundation uses sports to help people connect to themselves, each other and the rest of their community, working with local businesses, athletes and the County of Maui to create programs and events that promote strong healthy and self determined humans.
All Are We Water
We’ve also donated to the new non-profit All Are We Water, which was started by our own surf instructor Kelly Potts. Their mission is to provide therapeutic outdoor educational and recreational programs for under recognized communities to promote healthy lifestyles, and inspire a sense of responsibility to protect our planet for future generations.
All Are We Water Collective is a federally recognized non profit public charity currently offering free surfing programs for girls and women on the island of Maui, and the Pacific Northwest. While these programs have an emphasis on surfing and girls, they hope to explore and expand our learning and recreational reach to offer a variety of outdoor educational programs for all genders as they mature into the future.
Seabury Hall
Both our director and our manager attended and graduated from Seabury Hall, a high school located in upcountry Maui!
Seabury Hall is an inclusive community that prepares students for a successful college experience, fosters a passion for lifelong development of mind, body and character, and inspires responsible citizenship.
Donations of Surf Lesson Gift Certificates
We regularly receive donation requests for silent auction and other events from local non-profits. In 2019, we were honored to donate surf lesson gift certificates to:
- Pacific Cancer Foundation
- Paddle for a Cure
- Kelea Foundation
- Surfrider Foundation
- Carden academy Jamboree
- Kula School Harvest Festival
Scholarships
Each year, we select scholarship recipients for our teen camp, that would otherwise not be able to attend our program.
The feedback we receive from our scholarship recipients helps affirm the fact that we are indeed changing lives with this important program:
Getting to be around like-minded people, in such a beautiful place, was honestly a dream come true. I, somehow, didn’t realize how much the surfing aspect would impact me. After getting to surf everyday, I realized how different your connection to the water is on a board, then just being/swimming in the water. You realize so much more, how you and the ocean have to work together as one, and how big it really is.
Read more of this testimonial in this blog post.
Participation in Beach Cleanups
Each day we clean up the ocean and the area around our surf lessons, and we are also at as many beach cleanups as possible! Our teen camps each spent a morning cleaning various beaches around our camp!
Assistance with Ho’olana
, Ho’olana was inspired by Andrea Moller’s vision to offer Camp Imua kids a way to enjoy one-on-one time with an ocean athlete.
Each year our staff participates in this incredible eventA day focused exclusively on children with special needs to participate in watersports in a supervised, safe environment.
Ho’olana I Nā Keiki o Ke Kai is a day of bonding and inclusion, celebration the ocean that surrounds us. It is a fun and adaptive event for children and adults with developmental disabilities, allowing them the opportunity to experience ocean activities like SUP and outrigger canoe paddling with Maui’s top professional water athletes.
It first started as “Imua Keiki Kai” with about ten kids and twenty volunteers. Most of them were Andrea’s friends helping her enact her vision. They arrived on the beach early, each friend with a personal board to take a kid paddling. Hawaiian Canoe Club helped with a double hull canoe and paddles for the kids. It was a simple day with huge results.
The kids had a blast paddling in Kahului harbor with close supervision by Maui’s elite waterwomen and men. They were lit up with joy as they played in the ocean – paddle boarding, paddling a canoe, and jet ski rides. All these activities, the kids may have never imagined doing or even had a chance of doing before Imua Keiki Kai.
Every single person that showed up left with a bigger heart. Those volunteers returned every single year after that. And they have become family, the core of a beautiful gathering.
The event quadrupled the size in the past six years. Families mentioned their kids look forward to meeting the athletes and playing in the water. The athletes became more and more eager to help and make a difference. Our community grew. That’s when “Ho’olana I Nā Keiki” was formed.
Imua Keiki O Ke Kai (which means “go forward, children of the sea”) was inspired by our friend Andrea Moller’s vision to offer Camp Imua kids a way to enjoy one-on-one time with ocean athletes on water. A day focused exclusively on the children of Camp Imua, Imua Keiki O Ke Kai is a unique event aimed at connecting children with special needs to the ocean and our local community of ocean athletes, as well as building community among families.