Sharing The Stoke With Some Exceptional Souls

We are proud to be part of such a great community. We are even more proud of the great team we have assembled here at the shop. Check out this story below from team member Tom Nadzam on the partnership he has built with the San Rafael High Special Education Department. Thanks Tom for leading from the front!

At 101 Surf Sports, we all share a common love and stoke for waters sports, a healthy lifestyle and a keen interest in building the community that we live within.

Our lives are ruled by karma, the waterman lifestyle and most importantly, Ohana, which is from the Hawaiian culture and it means family. And as we all know, family comes in all forms. From our blood relatives, to our close friends and in our lives at 101 Surf Sports, it also means our entire customer base. Those people enter our lives everyday, and by our interactions and experiences together, we extend our open arms to welcome them into our family.(pictured below the kids working out our sunglass assortment)

When I first met young Dylan, he was a Junior at San Rafael High School (SRHS)...he was a stand out amongst the group of fellow students. He had such of a full personality and outgoing spirit, and all of this was witnessed every day from afar as I’d eat my morning bagel at the Montecito mall down the street from the shop. The students would help Puentez Taqueria open for the day, and I asked their teacher what they were doing, as my curiosity was peaked by seeing them so hard at work so early in the morning. She told me that they were part of the SRHS Special Education program, and that they were hard at work, learning job skills. After hearing that these children were so curious about our “Surf Shop” that I work at, I invited them to come join us during their lunch period to see what we did at 101 Surf Sports.

What an occasion! The group of students came into the shop, right at the time they said they’d visit, and I gave them the nickel tour, explaining how our business works and answering their questions as they asked them….only to finish that tour at the back of the shop, facing the water. We all took a quiet minute to look at all of the kayaks and paddleboards on the racks as well as the awesome sail boats moored in their slips, when Dylan proclaimed “I want to work here”. I personally was taken aback by his honesty, but that’s Dylan, he is a ‘mean what he says and says what he means’ sorta guy! There wasn’t any question in my head, I wanted him to work with us too! (pictured at right Dylan preps our Fesitvus Pole)

And so it began, every Wednesday, the group of High Schoolers would join us for work, and we would over time develop a routine and I could see the change in the student's awareness in their new workplace. Their questions became more complex and they started to truly understand that they belonged in our circle.

The main goal was building skills and confidence for future jobs while mentoring the students throughout the course of a school year, but friendships developed as well as skillsets, and we all became very close, and as one school year ended, Dylan proclaimed that he was going to miss working at 101, and he wondered if he could come back next year….Of course!

Now, with the group of children now being the big kids on campus at SRHS, they started to talk about their future, and some would be continuing on with secondary education, others would not. With the clock ticking towards the end of their Senior year, I reached out to Steve Maldonado with College of Marin, as a result of our conversation we were then able to keep Dylan working with us until he finishes college at the age of 21. After that, the students are placed in jobs, and the skills that they obtain during their time with us at 101 Surf Sports is critical towards their future opportunities as well their ability to be more independent in their lives as well as the workforce.

101 Surf Sports is not just a place for the students to come and work, it’s also a place to learn and enjoy the company and companionship with co-workers and customers. We can help foster a solid work ethic, teamwork and community involvement. And have fun as well.

We strongly believe in our core values of Work hard, Play hard, Family first, Be fair, Be healthy, Be humble and continuously work on and improve yourself.