One of the missions of the Coachella Valley Surf Club and its sponsors is to educate and promote the sport of surfing in the valley and the coast. Fortunately, surfing already has an advocate for these goals: Desert Mirage High School English teacher, Krysten Gonda who last year started the East Valley Board Riders, a student surf club from Mecca.
Krysten was inspired to form the club after she learned to surf while vacationing in Costa Rico four years ago. She loves surfing and wants to pass her enthusiasm for the sport to her students. Today, 40 students are in the club and make monthly learn-to-surf trips to Huntington Beach -- an almost three-hour drive each way.
Clearly, the surfing education of the East Valley Board Riders will benefit from wave pools located in the Coachella Valley. Krysten and her students have attended many of the civic meetings to support the approval and development of wave pools. Including, the Palm Springs Surf Club (opening 2020), DSRT Surf (2022) and Thermal Beach Club (2023?). In turn, developers have reached out to the Krysten to see how they can facilitate surfing education.
Below are some photos of the East Valley Board Riders from their Instagram account.
The West Valley Board Riders surf club is in need of wetsuits and surfboards to continue learning. Dave Hilts and PaddleAir have stepped in and purchased 15 wetsuits for the students. In addition, he is providing some foam boards and is getting donations of more surfboards so that all students can participate in the surfing activities. Dave plans to present the donations at a meeting of the club at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal. We'll post the presentation of the wetsuits and surfboards in the Wave Blog.