Surfing Victoria finishes third in SurfAid’s Make A Wave fundraising challenge

SURFING Victoria’s SurfAid team has raised more than $30,000 to go towards aid programs through September’s Make A Wave fundraising challenge, ranking the team third in the worldwide event.

Surfers taking part in the global Make A Wave Challenge surfed every day during September, to raise money for healthcare, food security, and access to water and sanitation in remote surf communities.

More than 4000 surfers from 28 countries took part in this year’s event, collectively raising $640,100, which is enough to establish health and wellbeing programs in 25 villages.

The Surfing Victoria Team was headed up by Surf Coast local SurfAid Ambassadors Nathan Rivalland and James Wilson-Browne.

The pair kick-started the team’s fundraising efforts with a Launch Party hosted at Four Pines, Torquay, raising over $10,000 on the night.

“The fundraising event was definitely the highlight for me, one of the best nights of my life,” Wilson-Browne said.

“It was so great to be able to host it alongside Nath, and see the willingness of the surf community to be so generous and give back.”

Rivalland and Wilson-Browne said the surf conditions were challenging during September, with numerous days of strong onshore winds and not much swell, the Surfing Victoria team needed every bit of motivation to surf all 30 days.

“I reckon this year was way harder for me than last year… but we kept motivating each other to do it,” Rivalland said,

“The only lowlight was the terrible conditions.”

Beyond surfing every day, Wilson-Browne and Rivalland increased their fundraising by completing challenges to ramp up donations.

Rivalland completed a number of surf-related challenges, surfing a finless and paddle board, and Wilson-Browne raised money with two separate haircuts, by waxing his legs, having his eyebrows done, eating a burrito while surfing, wearing a crown while surfing and recreating a number of iconic surf-film moments in the water.

SurfAid’s geographical focus is on the heartlands of surfing, places many surfers visit and have experienced first-hand, and particularly isolated villages where high maternal and child mortality rates are some of the highest in the world.

Having both travelled to remote surfing villages, Wilson-Browne and Rivalland said all-in-all the efforts were worth it as they felt humbled to they could play a part in helping better the lives of people in places they have travelled to.

“We’ve both travelled, been to Indo, been to local villages, and seen how people live in some of these remote areas, what the conditions are like, and the massive smiles on their faces regardless,” Rivalland said.

“So I guess it just makes me very proud to think of that and think about how much money we’ve raised and think about what that means for these people.

“Really, it’s nothing, it’s just fun for us to try to surf for 30 days, but to raise money, that’s pretty amazing.”

Through SurfAid, $30 can provide health and hygiene training for a mother for a year, $100 can provide a family with access to latrine and hand washing facilities, $200 can train a midwife in safe birthing practises and $500 can help a family access clean water for a year.

“The work SurfAid does really go where it’s needed,” Wilson-Browne said.

“So at the same time, being able to do something we really love, mucking around, dying my hair and surfing, to raise money that’s all worth it.”