If surfing is all about harmony and chill, young competitors with a North County surf school aren’t having it at the moment.
“It’s like super lame that someone would like steal it,” competitor Ryder Peterson-Meyer said.
Ryder is talking about Scholastic Surf School’s trailer, which was packed full of thousands of dollars worth of supplies for kids when it was stolen
“It’s really annoying because now everybody needs to donate a bunch of money just to get the stuff that was stolen,” competitor Nico Panichella said.
Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.
Scholastic Surf School teaches and organizes competitions for more than 2,000 middle and high school students.
“It’s like for kids,” Cassius Gibbs said. “It’s kinda lame. Like, you are taking away kidss fun.”
The school’s last competition was Nov. 21. Afterward, the equipment manager parked the trailer in front of his home and it was stolen overnight. The trailer is usually secured behind the locked gates of a storage facility. Unfortunately for the league the facility was repaving its parking lot.
Local
“I don’t think it was a target of knowing this was about kids or knowing it was about anything other than they wanted the trailer,” Competition Director Carolyn Krammer said.
Krammer says under the cover of darkness, with no witnesses or security cameras views, the trailer, tables, chairs, tents, electronics, heat boards and flags inside it disappeared.
The loss is more than $15,000 dollars.
“Appreciate what you have because you never know when it’s gone,” Krammer said.
Because SSS relies on the kindness of supporters, losing $15,000 in equipment is a big hit. Scholastic Surf Series gives kids gives kids an outlet they may not find in traditional school sports.
“We do competitions against other schools, so it’s super rad and, you know, it’s kinda fun,” Gibbs said.
SSS is down, but not out. They will have two weeks off then return to the South Jetty at Oceanside Harbor on Dec. 11 with or without equipment.
The Oceanside Police Department is investigating the theft. Meanwhile, the surf community is raising money to buy new equipment for the kids. In just over a week, they are two-thirds of the way to their goal.
