Surfer's Healing: Camp for Autistic and Disabled Children

NEW YORK (WPIX)—By FRANCESCA MAXIME

Chances are, someone you know has an autistic child. According to the National Institutes of Health, three to six out of 1,000 children will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and boys are four times as likely to have ASD, than girls.   And so it was not unusual that all of the autistic children I met while doing my report on a surfing camp for autistic and disabled children, called “Surfer’s Healing,” were boys.

Last year, I met New York City-based portrait photographer Paul Colliton through a mutual friend, and he proudly showed me photos of his teenaged son, Billy. Like any proud parent, Paul couldn’t stop talking about Billy and what a great kid he was.  He later shared that Billy was autistic, and that Paul planned to spend much of his summer shooting photos of a surfing camp that he and Billy attended annually on Long Beach called “Surfer’s Healing.”  Paul shared those photos with me, and it was clear just how much fun these kids were having – in some cases, hanging on for their lives – off the backs of pro surfers who’d donated their time. Of the event, Paul says “these parents are so grateful for the surfers and this event, because these kids don’t get to do these things.  After school, they’re going to therapy - they’re going to OT, PT, speech.”

Paul introduced me to a few other dads who also had autistic sons, including the founder of “Surfer’s Healing,” pro surfer Izzy Paskowitz.  Izzy comes from a huge Hawaiian-based surfing family, and once hoped his son Isiah would be a pro surfer.  But soon after Isiah’s diagnosis as a toddler, Izzy had to change course, and twelve years ago, instead founded the surf camp for children with autism (and other disabilities).  Of “Surfer’s Healing,” Izzy says: “I welcome everybody to come out and witness something difficult, wonderful, (a) community kind of binding – and a little bit of magic.”

“Surfer’s Healing” camps take place everywhere from California to Long Beach; from North Carolina to Rhode Island.  Curtis Wilson and his son “C’ have attended the camp in Long Beach for the last several years.  Curtis, a former college hoops star, says it was difficult to accept that his son had limitations he never anticipated, but that facing the reality of autism has forced him to be a better man: “You have hopes and dreams for your kids – they don’t necessarily go away, but they change. And the one hope I have for my son is that he enjoys his life, and that he’s happy. And that he grows in all types of ways, spiritually, educationally, emotionally.”

Jim Cowan, who has an autistic teenager named Jimmy, says there’s something entirely special about exposing an autistic child to the water through surf camp:  “He's great in the water, he loves to swim.  We have kayaks, paddleboards, surfboards, a boat.  Everyone will tell you, everybody's different on the water - they're just so good on the water.  All summer when we're out on the boat you would think he's a different person, a normally developing kid - he just loves it.  And back on land, there's a lot of pent-up energy:  I think on the water there's a vestibular energy, that I think helps them keep in check.”

Izzy hopes to continue expanding his surf camps around the country, and around the world, and says that together, sharing the experience of having an autistic child can mean as much to the parents, as it does to the children surfing:  “We're family, we're family in the weirdest way. You get detached from your own family.  I've got eight handsome healthy brothers, and one sister - she's gnarly – (but) it's a heavy situation, and it makes it a little lighter when we're all together because we all have the same issues, the same problems.”



To learn more about “Surfer’s Healing,” Just go to www.surfershealing.org, or visit them on Facebook at:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Surfers-Healing/163567001547