Ocean Beach stretches for three and a half miles along San Francisco's western edge, but for many immigrant families in the Outer Sunset, the Pacific might as well be on another planet. Carlos Medina is changing that. His nonprofit, Olas Para Todos (Waves for Everyone), provides free ocean safety education and surf lessons to immigrant families in the neighbourhood, most of whom have never set foot in the ocean.
Medina, a former competitive surfer who grew up in the Outer Sunset's heavily Chinese and Latino communities, started the program after learning that drowning rates among immigrant children were disproportionately high in coastal California. "These families live blocks from the beach but have no connection to the water," he says. "Fear of the ocean is a safety risk — if a kid ends up in the water and doesn't know what to do, that's life or death."
The program runs weekend sessions from April through October, serving approximately 200 families per year. Participants learn about rip currents, wave patterns, cold-water safety, and basic swimming before progressing to surf lessons on soft-top boards. All instruction is offered in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
But Olas Para Todos has become about much more than safety. For many families, the program is their first experience of recreation at the beach — picnics, bonfires, tide pool exploration, and the simple joy of playing in the waves. Medina describes the transformation as profound.
"I had a mother from Guatemala tell me she'd lived in the Sunset for eight years and never touched the ocean," he recalls. "After her first session, she stood in the water crying. She said, 'I didn't know this was mine too.' That sentence is why I do this."
The program operates on a budget of $120,000, funded by the San Francisco Parks Alliance, the Surfrider Foundation, and individual donors. Local surf shop Mollusk provides discounted equipment, and volunteer instructors include members of the Outer Sunset's tight-knit surf community.
Medina is working with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department to establish permanent bilingual ocean safety signage at Ocean Beach — something he calls "absurdly overdue" for a city with such significant non-English-speaking populations.