With longboards, shortboards, skateboards, and three SRO concerts, it was a wild scene at the Nike US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, CA – but SCA helped to ensure it was a clean scene, too.
SCA volunteers and staff removed copious amounts of litter from the beach which, as our own Joe Thurston tweeted, may have otherwise been headed to “one of those gargantuan offshore trash islands.” Seventeen-year-old world class surfer and SCA spokeswoman Lakey Peterson led the week’s biggest project, a Saturday sweep that left HB good to go for Sunday’s surfing finals, where Lakey absolutely rocked the house.
The Santa Barbara native scored a near-perfect 19.76 on her way to winning it all after finishing second in last year’s event and first in the Junior Division. Moments after she was carried off the beach by a buoyant mob, the new US Open champion found other reasons to celebrate. “I am so stoked that everything with SCA worked out so well!” Lakey shouted.
The beach clean-ups were a major success, SCA handed out more than 20,000 “Get On Board” wristbands with directions to our social media site: conservation-nation.org, and our booth in the Festival Village drew daily crowds pumped about SCA crew and intern positions. We salute Lakey for an awesome victory and her generous support, and thank all the folks at IMG, Nike, Rainbow Environmental Services, and our super volunteers, especially the team from the California Conservation Corps.