Local surfers to make waves again with fundraiser

A PAIR of Surf Coast locals will up the ante in a surfing fundraiser this September and again complete donors’ challenges while surfing for 30 days to raise money for SurfAid.

Participants in the Make A Wave challenge, first held last year, will complete 30 days of surfing in a bid to help improve the lives of women and children in remote areas of Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Mexico’s Baja California Sur.

Surf Coast’s Nathan Rivalland and James Wilson-Browne took their participation in last year’s event to the next level by adding daredevil challenges to their daily surfs, and quickly gained a following.

Together the two raised $6,000 for SurfAid, and this year the dynamic duo are back as official SurfAid Make a Wave ambassadors.

Mr Rivalland and Mr Wilson-Browne will host a launch party at Four Pines Torquay on September 3 to start their fundraising efforts.

The night will feature raffles, music, food and fun and includes sponsorship from local businesses, sports clubs and artists.

“To think that we can do something that we love – going surfing – and that’s going to be able to raise money for something like this is pretty amazing,” Mr Rivalland said.

“Thirty days of surfing in freezing September water, I initially was like ‘Am I going to be able commit to that?’. But last year our SurfingVic team raised just under $14,000 between all of us, and that was enough to train 70 midwives, or supply 26 families with clean water for a year.”

The pair said the response from sponsors had already been overwhelming this year and the two aimed to raise $20,000 along with the SurfingVic team.

“We were gobsmacked by how much support we got, and I think just doing that challenge and trying to raise money along with having the fundraising event this year will just be amazing, and hopefully we can sell out and get to our fundraising goal,” Mr Rivalland said.

“And the amount of raffle items from companies we’ve got is amazing, even with getting sponsors we’ve been gobsmacked.”
The two surfers will also complete several surf challenges at donors’ requests, an idea the two came upon during Make a Wave in 2021.

“Last year we did heaps of fun stuff to raise money,” Mr Rivalland said.

“It started one day when I had raised 400 bucks at that point and I put up a post on my Instagram saying ‘Hey, if I can get to 500 bucks by the end of the day, I’ll surf tomorrow morning… It was south-easterly, 40 knots, the most disgusting morning I think I’ve ever been out in at Juc, but my challenge was ‘I’ll go out in Speedos, booties, and a hood’.

“Luckily enough with how generous everyone was, we ended up raising over a grand in a couple of hours.”

“I think that was the start of the challenges,” Mr Wilson-Browne said.

“We started with the fundraising goal of two grand, and every two days or so I had to keep upping it.

“We ended up being in the top five worldwide in SurfingVic, and three of us were in the top 30 or 40 worldwide of how much we raised individually.”

The road to successful fundraising wasn’t smooth, with lockdowns, wild weather and both surfers fracturing bones, but despite the challenges, they said completing Make A Wave was worth it.

“Going out in Speedos in winter water is nothing compared to not having food or clean drinking water,” Mr Rivalland said.

Tickets to the September 3 launch party are available now at bit.ly/3AXUFlO or via the CueCode below.