The Surfer’s Healing day camp is a highly-acclaimed, insanely-popular surf camp for children with autism. Everybody who has done it has given it rave reviews. We’re obviously not ready for such an adventure, but I keep hearing about it from parents here, so I was glad to see them do a piece on local TV about them. It’s so popular that getting a spot is very difficult and they’re already booked up for the season, but I wanted to mention it anyway just because I’m so impressed with their vision.
(Click here to read the piece, or click here to see the video of the TV spot. - Note: Will definitely make you all teary.)
The program was started by Izzy Paskowitz, whose own son is autistic. He saw how surfing did such wonderful things for his own son and got the idea to spread this gift to other children. He’s interviewed in the video, and you can tell how big a heart he has. He has the face of someone who has tapped into something amazing. It makes me feel better just knowing people like that exist in the world.
For parents of autistic children, many days are difficult. We know we’d bear anything and do whatever it took to give our children a really great day. Most parents we know of ‘typically developing’ children don’t really understand what that means to us. We watch our children struggle bravely through every challenge, and all we want is one day where these challenges fall away for a while and nothing but joy pours out of them.
You can see the faces of the children and the parents in this video, and one thing is clear - this was a really good day.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Just as a side note, Izzy is the son of Dorian Paskowitz, about whom the movie “Surfwise” was made. The Paskowitzes are a pretty interesting clan!