During the Mauli Ola Foundation’s Aug. 22 Surf Experience Day, a dozen children with cystic fibrosis were paddled out in Wrightsville Beach’s mellow surf to experience the medicinal benefits of the ocean. Pushing them into waves was an elite pack of professional surfers, including 2000 world champion Sunny Garcia.
The annual Wrightsville Beach event is one of many Surf Experience Days the Mauli Ola Foundation (MOF) hosts on the East Coast, West Coast and Hawaii. The events help carry out the foundation’s mission to allow children with genetic diseases to experience healing in the ocean.
The healing comes in all forms, from spiritual healing for the cancer patients to physical healing for those living with cystic fibrosis.
“The saltwater actually helps cystic fibrosis patients to live longer,” MOF community outreach manager Jaci Talpash said. “It helps them breathe better and clears out their lungs when their lungs fill up with mucus.”
Charles and James Dunlop, brothers from California, started the foundation in 2007 after research indicated cystic fibrosis patients who inhaled a saline solution had fewer hospitalizations for lung problems.
“They’re surfers, but they’re also geneticists, so they merged the two,” Talpash said.
Local surfer Jacob Venditti has volunteered at Wrightsville’s Surf Experience Day for the past three years, helping children find the healing he has experienced firsthand. Twenty-one-year-old Venditti, who has cystic fibrosis, has been surfing since he was 8 years old, and he said the effect of ocean spray is very similar to the hypertonic saline solution he inhales as part of his daily medical regimen.
“It’s incredible,” he said, standing by the water’s edge watching the surfers paddle into the crumbly waves. “When I’m out surfing, I cough a lot, and get a lot of stuff out of my lungs. It kind of cleans you out.”
As Venditti looked on, Hawaiian pro surfer CJ Kanuha caught a wave, steering the large board while using his arms to support the tiny girl perched in front of him. It was one of the first waves the girl, Ani Shaw, had ever caught, and Kanuha said moments like those are why he participates in the Surf Experience Days.
“Just being able to see the kids’ faces, that’s the biggest thing,” he said. “You see some of these kids that are really scared in the morning, and then you see them after and they don’t want to leave the beach.”
While Ani does not have cystic fibrosis, her brother IV does, and the 4-year-old is a veteran of the Surf Experience Days.
“This is our third year participating,” his mother Holly Shaw said. “We have a picture of him riding on one of those guys’ shoulders on a wave with a pacifier in his mouth.”
Just as many of the same children return to participate in the Surf Experience Days year after year, so do the professional surfers like Kanuha. Through five years of working with the Mauli Ola Foundation he said he has formed bonds with the families he sees every year — connections that go beyond the three hours of catching waves.
“Last year [at Wrightsville’s Surf Experience Day] there was this kid named Reilly, and he and his mom email me all the time,” he said. “When the kids are down and having a hard time, they’ll reach out to me.”
“I just lost my mom to cancer, and I’ve gone through a lot of things in life,” Kanuha went on, “and the ocean has always been a place to lift me up and make me feel good. If we can help one of these kids here like that, it’s a blessing.”
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