This beach camp gives special attention to siblings of kids with special needs

The last day of the Sandy Feet beach camp in San Clemente started with a rousing hula hoop showdown. Players from each team hop down a row of hula hoops, and when they meet, it's a rochambeau faceoff.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

The kids at this camp, ages 7 to 13, all have siblings at home with special needs. But this week at the beach is their time — to connect with other kids like them and to just have fun.

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Marisol, 8, is visiting from Oakland, where she lives with a brother who has autism and another condition she couldn't quite remember at the moment.

What was her favorite part of camp? "I would say probably boogie boarding," she said.  

Besides playing at the beach, the kids have daily discussions about how to navigate the complicated feelings and situations that go along with having a special needs sibling.

"So, like, we were talking about, like, emotional boundaries for our siblings and for our parents and our friends," she said.

Marisol said sometimes her brother gets a little out of hand.

"Sometimes his emotions start to get, like, really dysregulated," she said.

"Is that hard for you?" I asked?

"Yeah, kinda. 'Cause I feel like I can't really, like, stop him."

That makes her anxious, she said.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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The 'why' behind a camp for sibs

Mo Langley started Sandy Feet in 2017. (Full disclosure, Mo and I are part of the same women's surf group.) She said she got into surfing in her 40's and started volunteering at surf camps for people with disabilities. She remembers working with a young girl one day who slipped off her boogie board into the waves.

"I scooped her up under her armpits so her face wouldn't hit the water and I turned around to wave at her mom to say 'I got her, she's fine,' and her mom is standing there, her hair is out in like 18 different directions and she's got three little boys running around her. And she looked so incredibly stressed out. And I was like, 'wait, we're not doing anything for this family.'" 

Langley decided to do something for kids like those boys and, by extension, for their stressed out mom.

"We bring them to the beach, we make them feel like they're number one, they get to meet other kids just like them because most of them don't know another child who has a sibling with special needs," she said. "So that is really important to them, to feel like they're part of a community."

A Sandy Feet camper taking a wave in San Clemente, June 28, 2024.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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From campers to counselors

Seven years later, some 500 kids have gone to Sandy Feet beach camps, after school programs and special events, Langley said. And the kids keep coming back — many of the volunteers and counselors at the recent camp in San Clemente are former Sandy Feet campers.

Trey Nelson, 17, was volunteering at the camp and attending a separate teen camp put on by Sandy Feet. Nelson's younger sister, Sadie, has a chromosomal deletion.

"Which is a fancy word for saying she can't walk, she can't talk properly. She has undergone many, many surgeries as she's grown up," he said. "And I love my sister very, very much."

Nelson said having peers with special needs siblings has changed his outlook.

"Seeing patterns and seeing things that this community has in common with each other has really helped me understand my sibling as a whole and understand their behaviors and then understanding myself," he said.

The campers hit the water for the rest of the morning — to jump over waves, ride the whitewater on a massive blowup dinosaur, and to just be kids.

Key details about Sandy Feet Initiative

Sandy Feet Initiative runs summer camps and after school programs in San Clemente and Huntington Beach, and they partner with Surfing Madonna Oceans Projects in Oceanside to offer summer fun days for siblings of children with disabilities.

• Some of the programs require fees, but Langley said "we give out scholarships like candy."
  
• Langley said her dream is to have something like Sandy Feet elsewhere in California and maybe even on the East Coast. "We have all the plans," she said. "All somebody has to do is take that lesson plan and follow it."
• Check out upcoming events ▶
• How to donate and volunteer