In the summer of 1998, former women’s surfing champion Mary Setterholm witnessed something on a Los Angeles beach that changed her life forever. Mary watched helplessly as unyielding rip currents pulled a struggling
12-year-old girl out to sea. The child drowned. Mary learned that the girl was from a low-income area, and had come to the beach unsupervised and inexperienced. Longing to visit the ocean, she had boarded a bus bound for the shore.
“I was so saddened and angered by what I saw,” Mary explains. “That little girl had every right to come to the
sea, every right for someone to be with her, to have taught her about the ocean and how to respect it. She deserved to make it home that day.”
To honor the child, and what Mary considers “a
calling from Mother Sea,”
she founded the L.A. Surf
Bus program. Each summer, Mary’s bus brings scores of low-income kids to the
waters of the Pacific, free
of charge. For eight weeks, more than 2,000 children escape the concrete jungle
for surf lessons, education,
and some good old fun along the Santa Monica coast.
Mary and her staff teach them about all aspects of the ocean—how waves work,
rip currents, tides, the marine environment, and ocean wildlife. Some students learn to body board, while others focus on building intricate sand castles. “A lot of these kids have never had much contact with the ocean at
all,” says Mary. “The program not only teaches them to
surf, but also changes their attitude and helps with their self-confidence. It is the most gratifying experience. I was teaching a little girl to surf one day, and she suddenly turns to me and says, ‘When we’re surfing, it feels like we’re dancing with angels.’ That
little girl summed up perfectly what I’m doing here.”
For more, call 310/850-3948 or visit lasurfbus.org.
