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Programs

are the heart of Surfrider's mission work and they're led by volunteers just like you!

Find a program and volunteer.

What are programs?

Our programs are made up of volunteers passionate about protecting our ocean. Program volunteers are the first response to local threats relevant to their initiatives; they are the boots on the ground, collaborating locally and nationally with staff and issue experts to carry out our mission through campaigns, programs, and educational initiatives.

Most programs hold monthly public meetings to discuss current actions and campaigns. The majority of our committee meetings are virtual or hybrid. No training or prerequisites are required. If you're interested in the topic, we encourage you to join!

Please see our Events Calendar for current meeting schedules and joining information.

Plastic Reduction

a child crouches down to pick up a peice of trash on a sandy beach. The child has dark skin, dark brownish reddish hair, and is wearing a bright green shirt with a cartoon image of the earth, and white noise reducing over the ear headphones. An adult crouches nearby holding open a blue trash collection back with the Surfrider wave logo. The adult is light skinned, wearing a yellow baseball hat and white and blue protective gloves.

Beach Cleanups

Our most well known program, beach cleanups, tackle ocean litter – primarily caused by plastic pollution - through education, community science, and action. We are all part of the solution, and together we can restore our coastlines, one beach at a time.

Beach cleanups occur multiple times a month.

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Climate & Coasts

Heavy machinery works on the sand of a beach at low tide carving away and covering the bluff with concrete.

Beach Preservation

 

Preserving our beaches is core to Surfrider’s mission. Our beach preservation committee keeps tabs on issues that negatively impact beach access and the future of our coastline. The beach is for all people, and we fight to ensure it stays that way.

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Clean Water

A close up from water level of a hand reaching down to pull a glass bottle up out of the surf. The background shows a blue sky, a big brown rock, and the edge of the beach cliffs.

Blue Water Task Force

The Blue Water Task Force (BWTF) is the Surfrider Foundation's volunteer-run water testing, education, and advocacy program. Our chapters use this program to alert community members, agencies, and officials about water quality problems and to work toward solutions.

Meetings occur on the third Tuesday of each month.

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Clean Water

A black and white photo of protesters walking up a pier holding signs with messages about clean water. The main person in the image is a latina woman with light skin, sunglasses, a small crusafix necklace, a backpack, a hat that reads

Clean Border Water Now

Clean Border Water Now‘s (CBWN) mission is to address and eliminate the sewage, trash, sediment, and chemical waste plaguing the Southern California border region. We do this by raising awareness through outreach and education while impacting policy with our advocacy work.

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Climate & coasts

A long line of people stand on the beach with their backs to the ocean. The line of people hold a long banner made of brown paper with the words

Climate Change

Our Climate Change Program supports coastal preservation through advocacy in several critical areas of climate action that affect our ocean—but aren’t necessarily happening directly on the beach. This program advocates for solutions like building electrification, blue carbon, and divesting from fossil fuels.

Meetings occur on the second Wednesday of each month.

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Plastic Reduction

An overhead shot of 4 metal round food containers, tuffins, holding brigth potatoes covered in an orange sauce, another container holds rice with a geen leaf in the middle, another holds flat bread triangles, and the last container holds a red and green soup or curry.

Ocean Friendly Restaurants

The Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants (OFR) program tackles plastic pollution at its source. One restaurant, one customer at a time, OFR increases awareness, drives behavior change, and ultimately creates a scalable impact to reduce our plastic footprint.

Meetings occur irregularly, check the events calendar for the next meeting.

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Plastic Reduction

blue plastic pieces are layed out to create a featureless mosiac on top of sand.

Rise Above Plastics

Rise Above Plastics (RAP) exists to eliminate the impacts of consumer plastics in the marine environment by raising awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution and advocating for a reduction of single-use plastics and truth in recycling.

Meetings occur on the third Tuesday of each month.

Learn More

Other Resources


Core Volunteer Orientation
Are you interested in volunteering with our chapter but still unsure where to start? Attend a Core Volunteer Orientation!
Our volunteer orientations help you better understand the Surfrider mission, structure, and current chapter programs and opportunities.

These meetings occur online via ZOOM.
Advance registration is required. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with the ZOOM link.
Check our events calendar for the next orientation.

Take a Surfrider University Training Course! 
SFU aims to provide interactive learning and development opportunities to the whole chapter network, to increase the knowledge and skills of individual activists, and increase the effectiveness of our chapter network. 
If you experience any login issues, please email aferron@surfrider.sandiego.org

Have you heard of our Beachapedia website?
It's like Wikipedia for coastal issues and can serve as your coastal knowledge resource!