Hawaii Life Teams Up With Surfrider Maui To Remove 2,000+ Pounds of Beach Garbage
In support of the Surfrider Foundation Maui’s efforts on International Surfing Day, more than 130 Maui community members, including dozens of Hawaii Life real estate agents and their family members, rolled up their sleeves for a beach cleanup at Maui’s Baldwin Beach Park last weekend.
The Saturday, June 15th event kicked off with a free morning yoga class on the beach, led by Maui yoga instructor Karin Kuhn of Maha Yoga & Wellness. After getting grounded and loosened up for the day ahead, the group set off along Baldwin Beach and set to work. And work they did!
Volunteers spread out from Baby Beach to The Cove and picked up trash in the woods behind the beach from 9:30 to 11 a.m. In just a few hours, volunteers collected more than 1,500 lbs. of large-ticket trash items, 114+ lbs. of recyclable items (or 4 huge bags), and 610+ lbs of general trash (or 15 huge bags) from the surrounding shoreline.
Following the cleanup, trash and recycling were sorted before Surfrider’s Volunteer Co-ordinator Andrew O’Riordon made a few announcements. Hawaii Life’s CEO & Principal Broker said a few words about our commitment to Maui, which could be seen and felt this past weekend, especially. As a company, Hawaii Life sponsored both the beach cleanup and this past weekend’s exciting and star-studded Maui Film Festival.
Their kind efforts and sweaty morning was repaid by the generosity of three local vendors who came out to supply refreshments and food to the many volunteers, including free shave ice from Tobi’s Shave Ice, pizza from Flatbread Company and some delicious Paia Bay Coffee.
This is one of several events that Maui agent Tobi Fisher, seen above, contributes to each year. You can read about her generous spirit of giving and aloha, and how she supports Maui kids through her shop Tobi’s Shave Ice at both Menehune Mayhem and Haiku Ho‘olaule‘a in one of our recent blog posts.
Maui agent Dave Futch, seen here with Christopher Robin of Surfrider Maui.
The beach cleanup was initially inspired by Dave Futch, a Maui real estate agent with Hawaii Life who has been surfing and kitesurfing on Maui for more than 30 years. Dave is committed to giving back by finding creative ways to share the joy of the ocean with those in his community, while also protecting the waves and local beaches he loves so much.
The Surfrider Foundation – Maui is an organization that Dave chose because their mission is so closely aligned with his own philanthropic purpose. The Surfrider Foundation and their volunteer activist network work to protect our coasts around the world.
“I believe in the Surfrider Foundation’s mission and have chosen to support them,” Dave told us. “I also believe in the culture that Hawaii Life Real Estate Brokers has developed and when they decided to sponsor the Surfrider Foundation’s International Surfing Day beach cleanup at Baldwin Beach Park, I found my two “worlds of purpose” merge,” he shared.
On International Surfing Day this year, the Surfrider Foundation and our many friends took time to celebrate, protect and enjoy the beaches and waves that we all love with the community. “Protect & Enjoy” was this year’s International Surfing Day theme, and I think it’s safe to say that the volunteers who showed up on Saturday did plenty of both.
“The success of the event was evident – the amount of trash collected from the beach is an impressive stat but the community spirit is what impressed me most. So many folks came out to support this wonderful cause,” said Dave Futch. “I look forward to supporting any effort, on behalf of Hawaii Life and Surfrider, to better our environment – which includes both the Earth and its community.”
The beach cleanup follows on the heels of our new office opening in Paia on Thursday of last week. We moved just around the corner to a street-level location on Baldwin Avenue on Maui’s beautiful North Shore.
A huge mahalo to all the volunteers, vendors, organizers, yogis and a big shout out to the folks at the Surfrider Foundation on Maui for working with us to make this an incredibly impactful event that was also fun for the whole community! Thanks to Hawaii Life’s team of Maui agents and brokers, as well as their families, for turning up in such large numbers and with such enthusiasm.
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