Jenna Curtis was sitting at home on winter vacation when the name came to her: Barrels for Boobs.
“The title came to me and I go, ‘Marley, what do you think?’ and she loved it and said, ‘Let’s make it happen,’” Curtis said.
Marley Boerema is one of the co-creators of surfing competition Barrels for Boobs along with Curtis. The event will be held on March 28 at Butler Beach near St. Augustine. All of the proceeds will go to the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation.
Boerema and Curtis are part of an organization called Wahines of the Waves, an all-female surf, skate and wakeboard club at the University of Florida. The group has never had any kind of official philanthropy until Boerema started brainstorming.
She based the idea off a friendly surf competition the women have competed in with the UF surf club in the past. She wanted to mimic the relaxed attitude of that competition while still being able to raise a sizeable amount of money.
“I assumed it would be as easy as that to plan because that gets thrown together in a week. Then I realized because we have sponsors, we owe a lot to those sponsors and [fulfilling those obligations is] the part that becomes a problem," Boerema said. "We felt the stress to constantly get the word out and to constantly be contacting the sponsors to make sure they don’t forget about us."
The sponsors were necessary to add the extracurricular parts of the event. The competition itself has identical divisions for both genders in the categories of beginner, short board, longboard, tandem and even the category of “weirdest thing you can surf.”
Curtis said they have also considered adding a division of “best wipeout” to encourage those who are new to surfing to come out to try the sport.
Before the 9 a.m. event, there will be a session of beach yoga, led by Boerema’s mother. It will also feature a raffle with items donated from sponsors such as Salt Life, Flomotion, O’Neill, Serengetee and LUV SURF Apparel, among others.
Locking down those sponsors came under the guidance of Dixie Smith, the president of Wahines. Smith learned how to interact with sponsors after her work with other organizations at UF such as the wakeboarding club, of which she is also the president.
She said the inspiration to create a philanthropic event for the organization stemmed from the steady growth they have had the past few years. The group now has up to 80 active members. Curtis said the Wahines membership nearly tripled at the start of the fall semester, which she attributed to a great freshman class filled with women looking to get involved in action sports.
Advanced registration to compete is $15, but the event is open to the public. Curtis and Boerema called and emailed their favorite brands in hopes of soliciting donations. Some of the prizes that will be raffled off include three Penny skateboards, two $200 Fugoo speakers, a $60 boogie board and possibly a longboard surfboard.
An after party will follow the competition with the chance of live music and food, depending on what sponsors donate.
Curtis noted they had issues going through the county government to rent the beach, which is in St. Johns County. The first problem stemmed from a $300 fee the county said is needed to host it, which the women hope will be waived since all of the proceeds are going to charity.
“We had to find a place where we could have a lot of people,” Smith said. “There were so many legalities. ... The biggest thing has been trying to work with the county and not be held back by the rules.”
The county told them if more than 150 people come, police will need to be hired for the event. Because it is the first time they are doing this, the Wahines are unsure of how many people will come out, though they are confident they will break that threshold with help from other surfers like those that Boerema knows from home and surf clubs from other universities.
However, coordinating with the county can be difficult. Boerema and Curtis's schedule doesn't always match up with the county's representatives' schedules. St. Johns County representatives only work Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m..
“There’s a lot of not knowing,” Boerema said.
Curtis would prefer to focus on other issues like getting Gainesville citizens to the venue via carpooling, which they are promoting on the event’s Facebook page.
“Breast cancer is a huge problem,” Curtis said. “We’ve seen so many improvements in breast cancer research and treatments over the past however many years, so we definitely think this money will go to good use. If we can’t cure cancer, we can always learn more about it.”