The Surfrider New York City chapter has had a great year. Thank you to all of our volunteers, members and Executive Committee for all of your work and support! We’ve been officially back to all in-person chapter meetings, happy hours, and events, and it’s been great to reconnect with everyone.
Thanks to the help of our volunteers, we planted two Ocean Friendly Gardens in the Rockaways. We hope to plan many more next year.
We ran our Respect Rockaway Initiative for the 5th year this summer. This initiative aims to inform beach goers of ways to stay safe and mindful while out in the Rockaways. We hope you saw some of our signs at the beach this summer!
Surfrider NYC held 18 beach cleanups in 2022: around 420 volunteers participated and collected over 1,300 pounds of trash. These cleanups included the Hands Across the Sand event, World Ocean Day, and International Surfing Day.
We participated in the Hudson Canyon Campaign to designate it as a National Marine Sanctuary. In the 60 day public comment period, we gathered nearly 2,000 signatures through newsletters, social media, and tabling. We also testified at 3 NOAA hearings in support of the Canyon and published an op-ed in The Rockaway Wave.
As part of a coalition, our chapter and other organizations were able to stop the plan to build massive seagates across the NY/NJ Harbor. The coalition was concerned about the seagates' impact to the environment and nearby communities and the possibility of flooding because of it in the Rockaways.
A small group of our Executive Committee members attended the annual Mid-Atlantic Conference in October in Asbury Park, New Jersey and had the opportunity to connect with other Surfrider chapters in our region.
We also hosted a members whale-watching outing in October and got to see the majestic wildlife in our backyard up close.
The “Skip the Stuff'' Bill was reintroduced in the City Council as Bill Intro 0559. We collected more signatures to hopefully push through this bill. In December, the chapter attended the City Council hearing to testify and advocate for the bill. If you haven't yet, please take a minute to submit a comment to your council member asking them to support this piece of legislation.
We look forward to all the campaigns and programs we’ll be working on in 2023. Please reach out to be involved!
