Dear Surfer’s Way Participants, Parents and Volunteers,
We are happy to announce our 2023 Surfer's Way Outings for children with special needs: Tuesday, July 11 and Tuesday, August 15.
Due to the questionable forecast today, we will unfortunately be canceling today's (Tuesday, August 15) Surfer's Way outing. This is for the safety of all participants and volunteers. Thank you for understanding.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the amount of participants, we please ask that you only register your child for ONE of the two dates so we can give as many children the opportunity to surf as possible.
Children surf for about 20 minutes in appointments from 9am - 12:30pm.
Registrations will be on a FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE BASIS. If we are unable to accommodate your requested date, you will either be offered the alternative date or added to our wait list.
THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING!
To register your child, please email SurfersWay@gmail.com and include the following info:
-Child's name AND age
-Parent/Guardian name and contact #
-Outing Date preferred.
We will send you an email confirmation when your child is registered. Thank you in advance for your patience with getting these outings going!
Riverside Beach - Long Beach, NY
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Riverside Beach - Long Beach, NY
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Due to the questionable forecast today, we will unfortunately be canceling today's Surfer's Way outing. This is for the safety of all participants and volunteers.
Thank you for understanding.
Looking forward to our next Surfer's Way outing at Riverside Beach in Long Beach, NY. If you are interested in volunteering, or have a child with special needs that would like to participate, please email us and include the following info:
-Child's name AND age
-Parent/Guardian name and contact #
-Outing Date preferred.
Surfer's Way is a non-profit organization designed to offer children with special needs the opportunity to experience the exhilaration and liberation of surfing.
We offer free surf outings during the summer at Riverside Beach in Long Beach, NY. Elliot Zuckerman, of Surf2Live, and his team are highly committed to providing a fun, safe, monumental surfing experience for children with special needs.
Founder
Elliot Zuckerman
Board of Directors
Stephanie Zuckerman
Marvin Weiss
Michele Vais
Lindsay Priest
Director of Water Safety and Instruction
Mark Davy
Tandem Surfing Instructors
Scott Bochner • Todd Burton • Paul Butler • Cheyne Castroni • Anthony Chiofalo • Tim Clare • Brian Coleman • Jack Concannon • Mark Davy • Christian Driggs • Dennis Debruin • Frank DeMarco • Christopher Edelstein • Steve Eichner • Matt Healy • Joshua Genuth • Charlie Goeller • Josh Goodman • Kevin Gole • Ian Grunke • Kelli Hingerton • Bill Homer • Erin Kamada • Frank LaMagna • Eric Landsman • Rich Law • Kevin Lynch • Kevin MacDonald • Daniel MacDonald • Mario Mauro • Liam McGuire • Matt McGuire • Alex Michaelman • Brendan Mims • Mario Morello • Jim Moriarty • Michael Muratore • Alan Nafty • Dan Quinn • Kelly Reis • Ken Ross • Sam Ross • Jaclyn Spahr • Daniel Szalai • Kevin Sime • Debi Spindelman • Jeff Stanger • Jesse Terzi • Samuel Tetens • Chris Thomas • Cliff Thomas • Matt Thomas • Jeremy Thornton • Steve Utley • Nick Vella • Jonathan Villegas • Dan Volpe • James Waite • David Weiss • Marvin Weiss • Bobby Wood • John Zator • Elliot Zuckerman
Volunteers
Lindsay Priest: Outing Coordinator
Walter Blum • Michael Breiner • Kathleen Burke • Shauna Carol • Alexandra Chilicki • Michelle Chilicki • Anthony Chiofalo • Frank D'Agostino • Lou Dearstyne • Carolyn Ejnes • Dakota Ejnes • Summer Ejnes • Catherine Ferrara • Michelle Green • Joshua Haar • Bob Harberg • Cory Harberg • Bill Hargrove • Kelli Hingerton • Valerie Horgan • Matt Kaplan • Megan Keleher • Ava Kitson • Irene Kitson • Liam Kitson • Tina Kitson • Gabby Link • Julia McGuire • Liam McGuire • Madilyn McGuire • Jessica Milazzo • Peter Mucci • Taylor Napolitano • Giovanni Panicola • Kelly Panicola • Alyssa Perri • Danielle Perri • Blake Pusey • Carissa Roca • Kailey Ruszkowski • Jocelyn Sawyer • Nikita Scott • Chelsea Smith • Jennifer Wilkinson • Julia Wilkinson • 1-800-Flowers Summer of a Million Smiles Teams
Surfing has been known to touch children with special needs and create a personal sense of accomplishment. Through Surfer's Way, every child can have the chance to experience the freedom of surfing, regardless of their challenges. Surfer's Way is a 100% volunteer-based organization that needs your help to work. Please consider how you can support us through your time and tax-deductible donations.
I just wanted to let you know that my son John loved his surfing adventure today. We are looking forward to next time. I wanted to thank all of you and please tell Mark thank you and I will work on getting John not to hold on so tight!
Dawn
We just wanted to thank everyone for a fantastic time at the beach last week! Your commitment to our children is overwhelming!! Words cannot express our gratitude! Thanks to you all, our son had the time of his life!!!! His happiness means the world to us.....thank you so much for all that you do for our kids! We are looking forward to seeing everyone again!
The Lyons Family
Would you like to submit a testimonial too? Email us at surfersway@gmail.com...
Wow! We have 2 autistic boys, Aaron is 12 and Josh is 9. Both are non-verbal and both share such love for the water. Aaron is my more nervous one, but he had 2 wonderful guys helping to get him on the board. When he was on with Daniel, what a smile he had! When Josh went, what a sight to see! Brian and Rose were helping out on the beach, Brian was really great with Aaron and Rose was just so nice - we look forward to bringing the boys back again. I can’t say enough good things about this truly wonderful program for our special needs kids, so HIP HIP HURRAY for the outstanding staff. Many thanks!
Wendy Birnbaum
I just wanted to send a quick thank you to everyone who helped out with the event today. My kids, Carly and Adam had a fantastic day as did I. The volunteers went out of their way to make us all feel at ease and it was wonderful to see them also share in our excitement. I am grateful for events like these and will absolutely bring Carly and Adam back again.
Sue Spielvogel
My husband and I wanted to thank you and all the people who helped make today such an amazing experience for our 2 sons Brett and Ryan! We had such a blast watching them, everyone was absolutely amazing with the kids and we hope to do this again with you soon, it was incredible :)
Chris and Laura Gaskin
Thank you so very much for yesterday!! It was all I had hoped for and then 100 times more!! Zachary had the time of his life. And to see him out there on the surf board… I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. (So I did a little of both.)
In the evening, I said to Zachary, “Mommy and Zachary went to the beach today, yes?” And he said “yes”. (Not all that impressive, since he answers almost all questions with a ‘yes’.) And then I asked, “What did we do at the beach today? We went…” and Zachary smiled and said, “surfing.”
And let me tell you, that was HUGE!!! Zachary is verbal, but has problems vocalizing anything that’s not in the here-and-now. I often use pictures to prompt him to talk about things that happened in the past. This though, was the very first time that he ever answered a question about the past tense without a visual prompt!!!
He later said to me, “Go surfing tomorrow.” I think he’s hooked. :-) So thank you, thank you, thank you for giving us such an absolutely wonderful day!!
Francine Kleiss
First, I want to say thank you so much for the wonderful surfing experience you provided for our son Alec. We had the pleasure of meeting Elliott in addition to “Surfer Mike” and “Surfer Marvin” as Alec refers to them. ALL of the volunteers were so kind and compassionate. We can’t thank you enough!!!!!!
Francine Kleiss
Thank you so much for today. Kevin loved it surfing again - it is always a pleasure and thank you for thinking of us.
Janet and Bill Kregler
Dear Elliot, Thanks for a fantastic experience on Saturday. Tom and I really enjoyed it -- after getting over Tom's initial response :-) I met some amazing people who are just so keen to see the kids succeed -- it was a brilliant atmosphere! We are going to try again with Tom. Please thank all of your team -- it was absolutely amazing! WELL DONE! Thanks again.
Jane Graham (Tom's mum) UK
Hi Elliot, I can't thank you enough for the wonderful experience Jay had yesterday. I've seen therapists with years of formal training that did not command his trust, attention and focus the way you did--and certainly not as quickly. Beginning with the clerk at the bagel store on Lido Boulevard and continuing later in the day at our neighborhood pool with everyone he saw---"I went surfing with Elliot" was his mantra for the day--coupled with a giant smile from ear to ear. Speaking as a parent of a child with autism, and not as a representative of my company, I highly recommend you to any other parent seeking a surfing experience for their child. I'd love to book another appointment. Please let me know if this is possible. Thanks again very much.
All the best, Marc
Hi, I just wanted to thank everyone for an incredible day at Long Beach yesterday. We couldn't have ended our summer in a better way. It was my son's first time ever in the ocean and he loved it. He surfed several times with Marvin and he had a ball. Marvin was great with him, so patient. I am very grateful to everyone involved in making yesterday happen!!
Kerrie Ferrara (and Paul)
It was a unique pleasure for our family to take part in the surfing event held in Long Beach September 4th. The passion and confidence expressed by Elliot and other volunteer instructors drew our son without hesitation into the waves. Nothing short of sensational! Such a great time!
Larry Fitzpatrick, Williston Park
As the father of an autistic 5 year old boy, I will do just about anything to expand his view of the world and let him have some fun too. So when I found out about a program tying in surfing and autism, I was all over it. Due to a mix up in dates however, we showed up at Long Beach literally a day late. After asking around the beach, some surfers pointed to Elliot and said he might know something. Boy did he ever! Elliot confirmed that yes, it was the day before, yes, he did know about the program, in fact, he worked with them! He said just have seat, play in the surf, and as soon as he finished with his current class, he'd see what could be done. This being Josh's first time at the ocean, I was skeptical how he would perceive it. No problem there, he took right to it. Well, Elliot came back and said "hey, I've got some time between classes, how about I take him out?" You couldn't stop Josh from taking Elliot's hand and heading into the surf. Elliot didn't have to do this, but he did. He then spent the next 45 minutes with Josh on the board. The pictures we have of him are, as the commercial says, priceless. And when all was said and done, Elliot didn't charge us. He wouldn't take anything. He said the smile on Josh's face was enough. Well, here it is January, and Josh still talks about Long Beach and surfing. Not bad for a boy whose memory usually fades after 2 weeks. I am definitely heading back to Long Beach, and this time, I will call Elliot and only Elliot, because I know he will take the time and effort to make sure Josh has a good time. Keep up the good work, Elliot!
Chris, father of Joshua
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together"
Vincent Van Gogh
Our organization always appreciates the generosity and involvement of people like you, with every contribution going towards making Surfer's Way an even better Non Profit Organization than it already is.
Surfer’s Way is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that depends entirely on donations from the community.
There are no paid employees of Surfer's Way, allowing all donations to directly fund the outings. Your 100% tax deductible donation enables us to serve every child so no one is turned away.
Checks made out to Surfer's Way can be mailed to the following address:
Surfer's Way
830 East Chester Street
Long Beach, NY 11561
Surfer’s Way also hosts a number of fundraising events and is always looking for the support of dedicated sponsors. For more information on how to support Surfer's Way, please contact us.
Surfer's Way is an entirely volunteer-based foundation and we are greatly appreciative of all of their hard work and dedication. Our volunteers have just as much fun as our participants, making new friends and memories that will last a lifetime!
Surfer’s Way serves children with special needs from Long Island and beyond. We are always amazed with the power of surfing to engage children in a way no other activity can. Regardless of your child’s challenges, Surfer's Way will have your child loving the moment and forever changed from the experience. It is an opportunity you don’t want to miss and we know you will come back time and time again!
If you would like your child to surf with Surfer’s Way, please see the events info for event dates and registration instructions.
There is never a cost to participate and no child with special needs is turned away. Please consider the variety of ways you can help Surfer’s Way provide this opportunity to every child. Become a volunteer, email us your info.
There are many ways you can help Surfer's Way provide a therapeutic surfing experience for children with special needs, including volunteering at the surf outings on the sand or water crews. Please email us with your name, cell phone number, date of the event you would like to volunteer for and the type of crew you are interested in working on. We will email you a confirmation with more details. Thank you for your interest!
Sand Crew
Members of the sand crew provide the structure on the beach to ensure a successful outing. Volunteers may be asked to assist with event registration, act as beach buddies, or manage the snack or merchandise tables.
Water Crew
Members of the water crew will be in the water with the participants as part of the water safety team, wading in the surf to ensure the safe transition of children from their beach buddy to their tandem surfer.
***If you are an experienced, strong surfer and are interested in working with an individual child on a custom-built tandem surfboard please contact us. All surfing volunteers must participate in a specialized orientation conducted by Master Surf Instructor, Elliot Zuckerman.***
If fine food and refreshing beverages are on your to-do list, check out Long Beach Bagel Cafe in Long Beach. This restaurant is great for families with kids.
An upscale pizzeria on the south shore of Long Island in Long Beach, NY with a classic pizzeria style.
NSASA is a parent-run organization serving over 2,000 families on Long Island. Our mission is to support individuals with autism in our local community.
United in our collective power to do something about MS now and end this disease forever.
A full-service utility construction firm with the most cost-effective, quality construction across a vast array of services, working anywhere in New York City or Long Island.
Lucy Lu
Riverside Blvd.,
Long Beach NY
United States 11561
surfersway@gmail.com
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