‘Not just a surf camp’: Un Mar de Colores helps kids find community by paddling out (2024)

On a recent Saturday at San Elijo Beach in Encinitas, a group of kids were running into the early morning waves with their surfboards. It wasn’t a regular surf day for them — it was their graduation ceremony.

Mario Ordoñez-Calderón watched the group from the sand, cheering for each of his students when they caught a wave. He’s the executive director of Un Mar de Colores, a nonprofit organization started in 2020 to teach low-income students about community and the environment through surfing.

“Our graduation ceremony isn't in a classroom, isn't in a dance hall or anything like that. It's here on the beach because this is our classroom,” Ordoñez-Calderón said. “This is where we first met the students here on this beach two years ago. So it only felt appropriate and a full circle to come back to the same beach where they attempted to surf their first wave.”

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For this class, 30 students were picked from a pool of applications. Over the course of two years, they attended monthly meetings that ranged from environmental field trips to surfing along San Diego’s coast.

Everything is free: surfboards, wetsuits, and of course, surfing lessons.

“(Un Mar de Colores) was in reflection of essentially everything that surfing brought me, from community, to connection to self, to connection to the ocean, and even job opportunities, and recognizing that there were kids in my neighborhood here in Encinitas that looked like me, but that yet I'd never see at the beach,” Ordoñez-Calderón said.

This is a transition year, as the current group of students are finishing their second year and preparing to leave the program. Next June, a new group will be taking their places.

“I think that's what really stands us apart is that we're not just a surf camp,” Ordoñez-Calderón said. “We're really focusing on the experience that the families are getting from the kid to the parents, all the way to the cousins that come drop in sometimes. We're really welcoming them all.”

It’s hard to imagine, but the graduating group were once shy and afraid of the water. At the graduation, they were yelling to each other, catching waves with the help of volunteers and eagerly jumping back on their boards when they fell. On the overcast day, the waves were a little bigger than usual, but the kids were undaunted on their boards.

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Isabella Aguilar Marin was 11 years old when she started the program and had never surfed before. Now, she’s 13 and said surfing has pushed her to work harder and be confident in herself.

“For me, my first time surfing was actually kind of hard since I didn't know how to surf, I didn't know how to swim … So it was kind of hard to reach the goal of standing it, but then I got to it and I reached it,” Aguilar Marin said. “You have to keep pushing to your goal. And that's what I've been mostly doing in school, keep pushing to get to my goals like I did on this board.”

Sze Tan, a parent of two children in the program, said they were reserved and socially anxious before they started. They were coming out of remote learning during COVID-19 and had just moved to San Diego.

Since then, she said “they have grown significantly.”

“When they first started, they were really shy. They didn't want to speak and be asked about sharing their feelings or sharing their thoughts about the day. They were really afraid of being out of the water, but now they love the ocean,” Tan said. “They also made really, really great friends. You know, you can see the group of kids in the same cohort when they see each other. They love being with each other.”

Tan said the most important part of the program for her was feeling like she and her family were welcomed.

“I think that to me, being a person of color and feeling like I don't belong in a lot of situations, to see my kids feel so comfortable with this group and how welcoming the group is, that has been probably the best thing to observe as part of the program,” Tan said.

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Un Mar de Colores’ mission emphasizes the importance of making the ocean accessible and less intimidating for kids from often marginalized communities.

“I think there's a lot of healing that happens on the coastlines. And unfortunately, there's a lot of populations who have had severed relationships with it, whether it be geographical displacement or just not feeling comfortable with it nowadays,” Ordoñez-Calderón said.

Ordoñez-Calderón, who is of Indigenous descent, hopes to address a discriminatory history at California’s beaches. Through decades of zoning, harassment and housing discrimination in coastal areas, many Black, Indigenous, and other minority groups were historically excluded from access to beaches.

He aims to help educate students about the ocean and help to break away from an embedded stigma around the beach.

Un Mar de Colores program director Yvette Beltran said the organization hits close to home for her, having grown up in a Mexican American household.

“For me, it was really cool to see how Mario was bringing people who look like me, and people in general from diverse communities out into the ocean. That was something that I grew up with, my family loved the ocean but either there was fear of it, or there was misconceptions,” Beltran said. “I just always saw people having fun and I wanted to be a part of that. If you don’t see yourself in it, it can be hard to access.”

Education plays a role in every meeting. Even on graduation day, Ordoñez-Calderón called out to the group over the ocean wind and asked them to gather around. They stood in a circle and discussed their thoughts on keywords, from “protect” to “play.” There was clapping after every person spoke and kids were eager to share their plans to help the environment around them.

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Then kids went to surf with Un Mar de Colores’ volunteers for the last time. Volunteers pushed the boards and checked in with the kids when they fell. Ordoñez-Calderón described the feeling as bittersweet.

“Graduating these kids, it's like seeing my younger brother or sister graduate or something like that,” he said. ”It's just like we're really connected, and we really do grow familial bonds with the students and with their parents because we get to know them for two years. So, yeah, it's a really emotional day, a celebratory day.”

Students agreed. Yaretzi Martinez, age 11, said she’s both sad and excited about graduating.

“Excited because now I know how to surf by myself, and, whenever I want to, I just come to the beach and surf. And it's kind of sad because I wish I could be here and keep doing what they're doing,” she said.

After their surfing session, the kids and volunteers came back out of the water, triumphant and hungry. The sun had come out while they were surfing, and the day became sunny and warm. Ordoñez-Calderón called another circle and thanked the parents and volunteers before handing out individual certificates for each student.

The kids proudly held their certificates with their name, and listened as Beltran shared how she’s seen them grow and what she appreciates most about them, whether it's their bravery or their humor. When it was the kids' turn to speak, they all said they're thankful. They thanked their favorite volunteer, they thanked their parents, and some thanked themselves.

“Go team kids!” the kids yelled, their nickname for the graduating group.

Ordoñez-Calderón was beaming with pride.

“When you're teaching them to surf, some of the struggles is, how do you take this moment of potentially the kid falling and being really spooked and turning it into something that's exciting and OK and a part of life?” Ordoñez-Calderón said.

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The kids ran to their families with their certificates, and after a hearty meal made by some parents, they walked off the beach with their boards, one by one.

The crew of Un Mar de Colores waved them goodbye.

“That's exactly what we set off to do,” Ordoñez-Calderón said. “The courage that you find when you surf, having that transfer over into your everyday life through building community.”