Surfers Healing marks milestone 30 years of helping share the stoke

Everyone understands they are all on the same board, riding the same wild, unpredictable waves.

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And for the people who showed up to celebrate as Surfers Healing marked a milestone 30th anniversary on Wednesday, June 3, the day riding waves was also about reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, sharing the stoke with one another and relishing in a perfect afternoon of surf, sun and fun.

The event, called One Perfect Day, was held at Doheny State Beach, the same spot where three decades earlier the nonprofit organization started its surf retreat for people on the autism spectrum.

Izzy Paskowitz started the program alongside his wife, Danielle, after learning their son Isaiah was on the spectrum. At the anniversary, he reflected on how it all started.

“I can’t believe how quickly 30 years have gone by,” he said.

There were few autism resources available when Isaiah was a kid, and the family tried every “therapy” they could find. One that put kids with autism in the water with dolphins in Key Largo wiped the family out of their life savings.

But Paskowitz had a valuable realization from the trip: Water can be calming for a child on the spectrum. So he put his son on a surfboard, instantly seeing a difference.

He remembers the first child who wasn’t his own that he took out on a surfboard, and there was an instant gut feeling that they were doing something right, he said.

“This is not easy, it’s hard to get these kids in the water, but it felt so right,” he said. “You feel that reward.”

Surfers Healing doesn’t charge families who participate, and in many cases it can also be a healing experience for parents or siblings watching from shore.

Thousands of kids with autism have now surfed with the nonprofit, which makes several stops around the country throughout the year. There have been visits in Mexico and New Zealand, even.

“For me, it’s a labor of love,” Paskowitz said, his son now 35 years old. “That is my motivation.”

It’s taken him 30 years to figure things out, and he’s an even worse businessman than his father, well-known surfer Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, who never charged people for care, he said with a chuckle.

“I always joke around, if I would have charged $5 each person, I would be doing fine in retirement,” Izzy Paskowitz said.

Paskowitz said his goal is to get to 50 years, and he suspects the next 20 will be easier than the first. He recently partnered with Spectrum Designs, a nonprofit business with 75% of its employees on the spectrum, to create T-shirts for fundraising, sold on the surfershealing.org website.

At the Doheny event, which marks the first stop in a series that will go around the country, participants came from as far as Tahoe and Arizona.

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Volunteer Shauna Ochs makes the annual trek from Palm Springs, a salt-water ritual the family now looks forward to each summer. She first discovered the program when her daughter Kylee, now 24, was just 8 years old.

“She’s a water girl,” she said of Kylee. “The beach is our thing.”

But more than riding waves, it’s about the community coming together, year after year.

“When we go out and she’s not cooperating, people just stare and they don’t offer to help,” Ochs said. But not with this community on the sand.

“Nobody is judging anybody,” she said. “We’re all in the same lives together.”

One Perfect Day is a chance for the families to relax and soak in the sights of watching their loved ones happy, enjoying the waves.

“There’s nothing better,” Ochs said. “There’s not a lot of words to describe it. She has so much fun. When we’re here, she loves it.”

The swell came in strong at the event and waves were big, the shorebreak challenging surfers and volunteers.

Steve Roberts marveled at how the surf coaches were able to navigate the pounding waves while trying to get his son Griffin, 28, out into the ocean, struggling as each wave came and tossed them around.

But they didn’t give up.

“It turned into a negative, where he didn’t want to do it,” Roberts said. “You don’t want to leave on a negative note, you want to leave on a positive note. If you leave it on a negative, you’re not going to do it again.”

Several other surf coaches noticed and rushed to help get them pushed past the shorebreak and turn into just the right spot to ride a wave to shore.

“It’s overcoming your fears,” Roberts said.  “I’m really proud of him, he overcame it.”

First-time surf volunteer Sam Deatherage was in awe watching the day of fun unfold on the sand and in the surf.

“This is the most amazing opportunity to be here,” said Deatherage, a Salt Creek surfer whose niece and neighbor both have special needs and who wanted to find just the right way to volunteer. “God put me here. It’s really cool to watch these kids. … the waves are consistent and there’s swell. Watching these instructors is inspiring. They are navigating through heavy shorebreak with the kids, it’s a gift.”

Paskowitz calls the volunteers “healers” and said the turnout was incredible.

“All the kids showed up, the waves showed up. The healers were amazing. There’s something magic about having a real radical ride,” Paskowitz said. “It was a magic day.”

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