MeWater's Nature Area Trips and Activities in the Community met the following educational goals: Instruction in arts that connect to nature: through our Activity in the community that included two events. One event was held on 2/17/2023 in a collaboration with artist Jamae Tasker, City of Dreams youth and MeWater Foundation. (photos included in this report). The youth created their own art pieces shown and sold at Blackbird Bookstore, with a reception for the community, as well as an opportunity for the youth to see their work shown, and were able to answer questions about their work to the attendees. A very successful and proud moment for all involved as it engaged the youth in creating art that expressed their experiences at a Surf and Nature Camp, with the youth verbally sharing their art and experiences. The second Community Event featured a collaboration between MeWater Foundation, artist Ana Teresa Fernandez, Sunset Co-Op Preschool, Youth Vs. Apocalypse, and City of Dreams youth. MeWater held a surf camp, followed up by an amazing poetry and spoken word/reflection exercise, lead by youth from Youth Vs. Apocalypse. The course focused on water and the climate crisis we all face. Fostering stewardship of the environment: at each Surf and Nature Camp. Each camp includes curriculum and structured programming to engage the youth with ways to preserve, protect, and access their local beaches, parks, and outdoor spaces. At each camp, MeWater staff, Youth Ambassadors, and volunteers educate the youth in environmental stewardship and hold a beach/park clean up at the end of the event to actively teach stewardship. Environmental stewardship is also taught at our community meetings. Healthy lifestyles and sound nutritional habits: MeWater's single-day surf camps include instruction and hands-on learning about healthy lifestyles. This includes education on the importance of physical and mental wellness, how to bring food to the camps and leave behind the least amount of waste, and the vital importance of sharing these practices with family members. Additionally, MeWater partners with Urban Remedy, a line of healthy food and juices produced in San Francisco. Urban Remedy provides these free nutritional snacks and lunches for the MeWater youth, educating them on the value of nutrition in their daily lives. At our overnight camps, we include the same instruction and programming listed above, and we also teach the youth how to cook for themselves at a campsite. Career pathway mentoring: At each of our overnight camps a State Park interpreter joins our camps to educate the youth in careers and opportunities with park operations and California State Park agencies. At all of our camps we include education on therapeutic recreation as we teach the youth the mental and physical value of surfing, body boarding, hiking, and rafting. MeWater is rooted in the belief that surf therapy can heal and rejuvenate youth facing adversity and stress in a unique way. Through the work of our mental health experts, we teach the youth to realize and appreciate the therapeutic nature of the ocean and beaches. We want to share a couple of quotes here: I've been fortunate enough to get to partner with MeWater for several years now. They have helped to share the beauty and joy of the natural world with my fourth-grade students. On more than one occasion, MeWater has provided the means to take twenty-plus students and their families surfing and camping. Many of these students have never been in the ocean before and don't know how to swim.

1- Instruction in arts that connect to nature: We held a 4 part series with Innersection of The Arts that involved dance, art, singing and poetry, all in expressive forms after surfing. Mind blowing for all! 2- Fostering stewardship of the environment: Each camp includes curriculum to engage the youth the youth with ways to preserve, protect and access their local beaches, parks and outdoor spaces. 3 - Healthy lifestyles and sound nutritional habits: MeWater emphasizes the importance of healthy body and mind, by role modeling this approach by being active in Mother Nature, combined with teaching about healthy food, and we partner with like minded brands, always providing healthy food and snacks. 4- Career pathway mentoring: We continue to provide our youth, especially our TAY age group with mentoring, resources and connections in the community to allow them to explore potential career options. We also employ TAY youth, which allows them to gain work experience and serve their community

MeWater has held its Nature Area Trips and Activities in the Community with its community partners. Our Surf and Outdoor Activities and Community Events are held in partnership with the fantastic organizations that help us recruit and reach the youth needing our programming. Partnerships to date include City of Dreams, Project Avary, Hope SF, Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco, Edgewood Center for Children and Families, Casa SF, Huckleberry Youth, San Mateo Casa, Asian American Community Foundation, College Track, Friends of the Children San Francisco, Youth vs Apocalypse, and St. Raphael's School. Through our work with these organizations, we have seen the benefits of bringing the youth to multiple camps throughout the year. The underserved San Francisco-area youth desperately need outdoor programming and opportunities to experience nature. To meet that objective, we held numerous camps with each organization listed above to ensure the youth could experience multiple Surf and Outdoor Education Camps. Our partners taught us the value of bringing multi-generational family members to the overnight camps. We will expand the number of overnight camps we offer to accommodate our families We added new partnerships during the grant period, and expanded our growing list of community partner organizations, as we continue to strive to share our programming with as many Bay Area youth as possible. Hope SF, St. Raphael's School, and Huckleberry Youth are now partnering with MeWater to bring their youth to our Surf and Outdoor Education Camps. These connections and relationships are at the core of our mission, and it has been wonderful to witness even more smiles and joy spread throughout our community.

We have continued to make new partnerships each and every year, as well as build upon existing partnerships to extend our reach into the communities we serve. Exciting new partnerships were made with: Sonoma Valley Mentoring- We took youth and their mentors for an exciting surf and beach day. All participants were first time surfers! Waves of Grief Collective- We partnered for a very powerful day, combining surf therapy with processing the grief/loss of a loved one. Extremely moving experience for all, and much more to come! Visitacion Valley Strong Families- We hosted a family beach day for youth and their families. For many, it was their very first beach and surfing experience. Simply incredible. All of this on top of the 20 plus community partners that we already serve has allowed us to continue to grow our many touch points in the community that we serve, and beyond! It is a testament to the value of the work we do, as our free programming allows our community to access nature!!!

Through the first portion of the OEP Grant, MeWater has already reached 2,023 youth through its expanded Surf and Outdoor Education Camps and community events offered to underserved Bay Area youth. We held well-attended community events that further engaged the residents in our MeWater camps, and provided education in exploring nature, and leadership. We learned the value of combining community events with our Surf and Outdoor Education camps. There have been many accomplishments over the course of this grant period, starting with each year we have increased the number of camps and youth served, essentially uplifting the mental health and well-being of the youth served, all while increasing their awareness of the benefits of being outdoors in Mother Nature. This awareness of the magic of Mother Nature, along with the understanding of how to access parks, beaches and rivers has lead to many of our youth and their families taking the steps to do this on their own as family units! We have learned that the more we share these experiences with the youth and their families, the more that they as a family unit are then inspired to do it on their own. This truly defines the "why" we are doing what we are doing! Over the last few years, we have been including the invitation to the families of the youth attending our events, and we have been working closely with our community partners to help facilitate this process, helping with transportation and whatever is needed to help get them to the beach or campground. In addition, the development and implementation of our community meetings, involving community partners, youth and families has been a huge success, as it has connected us deeper as an organization to the needs of those we serve, as well as helped us understand what is working with our programming, and where we can make adjustments to meet the needs of those we partner with and serve. MeWater retained interns to execute surveys of its participants and camp volunteers. These surveys provided valuable program information as we continually strive to improve our camp experience. Surveys are a great way to ensure vital programs! Our community partners are vital to our recruitment and camp attendance. Expanding community partnerships is a great way to develop programming! MeWater purchased a second transportation van for its programs in 2022. Our free, accessible, reliable, and safe transportation plan for the programming is vital to success. With clear focus on community activities, we had some unpredicted roadblocks when trying to facilitate a few events, mainly circumstances outside of our control, but surely there were some lessons learned. In particular, when trying to plan CPR classes, and probably trying to make sure that we were being inclusive of all parties, this created some challenges with actually being able to hold the actual training itself. Lesson learned for us is to just simply schedule the class on a certain date that works for us and our community partner (City of Dreams) and then move forward with it, regardless of outside circumstances.

As an organization, we have learned so, so much throughout the course of this grant period. Most importantly, as we have continued to expand our community events, it has become clear to us how vital outreach is, as this greatly impacts attendance and how many youth and families that we reach. This outreach is far more extensive than we need to do for our beach or surf days, as we have grown our credibility in regards to providing community events. That said, perseverance, creativity and have been instrumental for us along this journey. Focusing on the quality of what we are providing has also been a huge plus, and very well received for those in attendance.