Surf Pals started as a concept Sept. 11, 2002 when Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg and I met with the folks from Surfers Healing (a California based charity that invented surf camps for autism) in Rockaway Beach for a mini-outing with half a dozen local children on the spectrum. Their founder, Izzy Paskowitz, had been a neighbor of ours in San Clemente (CA) and his son and mine are pals on the spectrum.

The first try was a great success (go to www.surfershealing.org to see the video of that day).

Harvey and I decided to accomplish two things:

Move the event from Rockaway to Long Beach (our home).
Provide more, season long opportunities for local kids to surf (Surfers Healing, based in California, makes only one trip a year to Long Island. They continue to host an even in Long Beach, that we support, but it is a long season and wanted to grow locally in ways the California guys couldn’t).


From that Surf Pals was born. Elliot Zuckerman was an enthusiastic and active supporter from the early days and later became a key member of the organization. He assisted in raising money and is unmatched with the kids in the water.

As he has retired from his New York City job and planned to devote more time to his Long Beach surf school, Elliot is well positioned to take over operations of a surfing for autism venture. I, alas, am far from retirement and can’t devote time to continue to run an organization that started with five kids and has grown to hundreds.

So we wish Elliot well and will continue to provide moral and other support as needed. Elliot had been the surf master, I was the conduit to the autism community. Now that the relationship has been established, the venture should grow organically.

Elliot has been the keeper of the equipment and has been very generous about making sure it was available not only for Surf Pals outings but also for individual surfers who team up with specific children on the spectrum. My vision had always been to create a “Big Brothers/Sisters” group matching individual surfers with individual families for season long surfing in addition to a couple of major events (we have at least one pair, surfer and kid, who are in the ocean 10 months a year). Elliot should continue to maintain custody of whatever equipment came from Surf Pals as I know he will use it well in his planned venture. From my point of view the equipment is not owned by any group but rather the autism community; it isn’t important what entity maintains physical custody. Elliot is, has been and will be a good steward. The idea is to use whatever equipment available for the good of the disabilities community and right now, Elliot is in the best position to do that.

Surf Pals is continuing as a corporation in hibernation (obviously not a legal term) to see how Elliot’s group fares. If, as we all hope and pray, Elliot’s group flourishes, Surf Pals will eventually fade into the sunset and probably go out of business in the coming years. If Elliot finds that he is unable to continue his autism program we want to have a corporate structure in place to dive back in and reconstitute some type of recreation program.

My guess is that Surf Pals will do no fund raising this year as Elliot assures us he has all the resources he needs—or plans to acquire same through his own fund raising ventures.

I remain active in autism related events including Nassau Suffolk Autism Society of America, Long Island Blues ice hockey, the Lakeview stables, the AHRC and other groups. My skills are better suited to invention and political lobbying than surfing or long term management.

We want to thank you for your past support of what has been and hopefully will continue to be a great program, regardless of moniker.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me or Harvey.