Surfers Healing - With Nikki Bascome

The Nicky and Ruhle Podcast Experience features Surfers Healing, a nonprofit hosting surf camps for children with autism to provide a break for families. Pro-surfers join to offer a calming experience in the ocean. Nicky Bascom, a guest, discusses the organization, its impact, and the upcoming camp. She explains autism's spectrum and the importance of supporting these children. The camp offers a transformative experience for kids and emotional relief for parents. It symbolizes hope for the future and showcases success in facing challenges. Welcome to the Nicky and Ruhle Podcast Experience, I'm Ruhle Sample. We're going to start off a little bit differently on our podcast today because our very special guest is indeed very special and I'm going to introduce her by way of a clip. So here is getting to know our very special guest today. Breaking barriers and catching waves, the Surfers Healing Autism Foundation hosts its annual surf camp at Rice Beach. The non-profit organization runs surf camps all over the country for children with autism. Pro-surfers come from around the world to participate and the group's leaders call the experience a much needed break for campers and their families. An event like this is meant to be a reprieve from autism, a chance for families to come together, have a good day at the beach with each other, which they don't normally have. And as you can see, they're out in the water enjoying themselves. The ocean offers a calm to everything that can and will go wrong in the life of autism and we like to take it away just for one day. Autism doesn't exist for these families. And this marked the 19th annual camp here in North Carolina. Over 200 kids signed up to participate. Our very special guest today is none other than our very own Nikki Bascom. Hello, Nikki. How are you today? Hey, Roel. I'm doing great. I am wearing my sunglasses because I still get choked up thinking about all the wonderful things that Surfers Healing is and all of our wonderful families and volunteers and I'm so excited to share this part of my life with our viewers. In other words, she's an emotional mess, ladies and gentlemen, and more so than usual, she's an emotional mess today. But we are here to talk about a non-profit organization that has become very near and dear to your heart and that is Surfers Healing. So, Nikki, what is Surfers Healing? So, Surfers Healing is a free surf camp for children with autism. Surfers Healing actually started in California and pre-COVID it was in, it had 32 different camps across the continental United States and we were in seven different countries. Izzy and Danielle and Jeff are slowly building it back up to there and we are so, so incredibly blessed at Wrightsville Beach. Even though the clip that you just showed said 19 years, this coming August is going to be our 20th year that Surfers Healing has come to Wrightsville Beach. We are so incredibly blessed. We've noticed that with children with autism and actually I think any typically developing child has noticed and a parent has noticed that a certain calm comes over you when you get out past the waves and you just take a deep breath and all is right in the world for just a few minutes. And it just rejuvenates you. It gets you ready to take on anything and everything. And one of the things that we hear parents say all the time is, if my child can do this, they can do anything. They can do anything. And they can. And we want to encourage that, not just here on the beach during our camp, but all year long. We want to encourage it. You can do it. You can do anything you set your mind to. So this year's Surfers Healing camp is scheduled for what day? Monday, August 19th. And actually, if anyone's out there and knows someone with a child with autism or you yourself have a child with autism, a grandchild, niece, nephew, our registration is open right now. It started yesterday. It'll run all week long. It is a lottery system that goes through our national camp. And then they'll turn around and tell us who made it in and who didn't. But you usually get notified within 48 hours if you made it into our camp. They try to keep it to people that have not been to our camp before. But sometimes, you know, it happens. We get repeat people. And it's OK. Let's talk about autism a little bit. This is a chart that was released a couple of years ago in 2022 that shows the rise of autism over the years from year 2000. And just today, the CDC released its latest numbers that one in 31 kids is diagnosed with autism. First off, Nikki, what is autism? Well, you know, it's kind of hard to pinpoint what autism is. It runs the gamut. We have an umbrella because you can run from high-functioning autism, which is very hard to recognize. I feel like most adults have high-functioning autism. We can run our normal lives. High-functioning children with autism go on to lead perfectly normal lives that we can tell. And then you have low-functioning autism, which is like my Houston. My nephew Houston has low-functioning autism, which means he needs a little bit more prompt to be able to talk. He's not going to do the normal things that other children do. You know, there's no driving a car. There's no going to prom. Or, you know, he graduated high school, but it's a little bit different. There isn't going to college. There may be getting a job and things like that. But to narrow down, to really pinpoint what autism is, it's difficult. And it means something different to everyone. Where autism might be a door slamming in one family's face and absolute devastation for another family could just be another bump in the road. And, hey, we can pick up and let's keep moving. So it really depends on what your mindset is. And is this a roadblock or is this an opportunity? And I have yet to find a child diagnosed with autism that I haven't fallen in love with on some degree, on some level. And admittedly, when I first started with Surfers Healing, I wasn't familiar with autism at all. My husband and I got involved because of the surfing aspect of it and wanted to give back to our community and do something in honor of our Houston. And I was actually a little bit intimidated. It was something that it kind of terrified me. I didn't know how to interact. It took a few years for me to get involved, like really, really get involved more than just the paperwork and logistics side of it. And now every child and every parent, whether they have autism or not, they have a special place in my heart. And it will one day explode, I'm sure. One of the things that you said in the clip that we started off our show with is this is the one day or this is a day that autism doesn't exist, that these are just kids going out surfing. And we're going to talk about the kids a lot, but I want to focus a little bit on the families because when you're the parent of an autistic child, especially a low-functioning autistic child, is that it is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job. And how important is it for those parents to be able to step away for a little bit and watch their kids go surfing? At first, it's very nerve-wracking. I mean, it's when you've been there, it's almost like a newborn child, a newborn baby. It's hard to turn them over to someone else. And God love these parents come in every year and turn their child over to people they've never met before and to trust us to love their babies like they love them. And it's difficult. And, you know, it's not just the low-functioning, but, you know, it's the children that have never been in the ocean before. They're completely overwhelmed. It's a sensory thing. And there's all these people and all these noises and all these colors and the ocean crashing. And it could be so overstimulating and so much to take in. And a lot of them, they don't want to go. But no, no, I'm not going. And we've had some parents that just said, no, we're not going to do this and walk away. And that's, that's, we're not going to force a parent to do something that they want, they don't want to do. But if you just give us a little bit of time, we have one parent who has come back year after year. And every single year, their son kicks and screams and bites and scratches and cries and will not go. But I'll be damned if they don't get past those waves. And it's the best day ever. And they're in their ocean. They're a kid again. And they come back after the first wave. And if they're nonverbal, they would want more. They want more. And so they turn around and go right back out. It is, it's a crazy transformation. But it's also seeing the tears in the parents' eyes. The fear and intrepidation that they are encountering themselves of letting their child go. They have to let them go just for a few minutes. And the tear, there's not a dry eye on the beach. Not a dry eye. I imagine that this is, especially for parents where it's the first time that they're going, that this is an eye-opening moment of hope for them. That there is a future for their child, who's someday going to be an adult. That they can, there's almost a sense of relief that their child can actually do this. Do something hard. Yeah, I can't surf. I mean, you know, when I surf, I look like a whale on a piece of board. But, you know, this isn't easy to do. And you're taking kids from all levels and putting them on a board. And putting them in the ocean. And they are being successful. And every kid who goes in, right, whether they get up on the wave or not, just the very fact that they attempt to do it, that's success for them, isn't it? It is a lot of fun. I'm getting back to the parents. And I know you and me have talked about this before. One of the reasons why Surfer's Healing is so passionate to me is one of the first times I ever sat down with my sister-in-law and talked about life and autism and children. And she laid it on the table. She didn't hold anything back. And she said, Nikki, she goes, you're planning for your typically developing children to go to middle school and high school and take SATs and go to prom and get their driver's license and go to college and get a good job and maybe get married and have grandbabies and you're going to retire and go visit your grandkids and go traveling. She said, Nikki, my whole life revolves around making sure that there's someone there to take care of my son when I die. And for Jess? She doesn't have those things to look forward to. And so it just, it fuels my passion for that one perfect day where, you know, if the parents want to talk about therapies, go talk about therapies. If you want to talk about diets and immunizations, go talk about it. But we're not going to bring that to the table. We're going to make sure that you don't worry about anything. We have shuttles that drive all day long to Wrightsville Beach, so they don't have to worry about parking anywhere. We feed them for the day. We have a children's area that we have therapists that work in our children's area, not to talk about therapies, but just to have the sand toys. You don't have to bring anything. We have a water truck that brings water for the day. We have life jackets that if you want to go swimming after your surfing time, you can go do that. Just, we have volunteers that'll hang out with you if you happen to have a runner. I mean, we have some children with autism that'll just take off. We've got spotters on the beach that that's what they do. That's what they're there so that these families can just release a lot of tears. And at the end of the day, they're a family at the beach. They're a family at the beach. And you know what? No one, your child can stim. If you're familiar with autism, you know what stim is. Your child can stim. Your child can strip down naked. Your child can scream and kick and do everything in the world. And you know what? We're going to pat you on the back and we'll be like, great job, mom. Great job, dad. We're here for you. How can we help you? And that's what we're there to do. We just want to, we can't do it all year long. We're actually fundraising all year long to make sure that this one perfect day happens. But for that one day that we have an amazing volunteer coordinator that all she does is make sure that our volunteers are on top of it. We even feed the families for the day. They get to go, the kids get to go surfing with their surfers. And you know, one thing about these surfers, I don't think a lot of people understand is these are the best of the best. These are professional surfers from around the world. They're from Puerto Rico, New Zealand, Mexico, Hawaii, California. Some of them are some of the best ocean rescue crew that you have ever met in your life. These are the best of the best. And they take volunteer time. They don't get paid for this. And they travel. So our East Coast tour is actually Maryland, Virginia Beach, Wrightsville Beach, and then Folly. So it's like, bam, bam, bam. They've got four camps with all of these kids. And then they take a week off and then they head up to New York and do Narragansett and Rhode Island. And these guys are doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. And to watch that, we've had, so this is our 20th year. We have so many stories. But there was one year where we had absolutely no waves. Maybe an ankle high wave would come. And the surfers here in town are like, oh, wow, well, we're not surfing today. Even my own husband was like, yeah, there's no way we're surfing today. And lo and behold, those surfers made it happen. Those kids were surfing. There is no limit to what this crew can do. We can do it. Bring it on. Speaking of Folly Beach, I wanted to share something that you sent to me. This is a quick outtake from the Folly's Beach Surfers Healing from 2024. And if you're listening to this, we'll talk about it a little bit at the end. But if you're watching this, I want you to see just how big this event is. So let me bring that up right now. Surfers Healing, they are the kindest, most genuine people. And they mean so much to us in our community. And the fact that they would bring all of this for these kids is amazing. And Surfers Healing and Nancy, they're just amazing people. And they just love us and give us a perfect day. I mean, if it's my son, as an example, as he showed up, there was a lot going on. He was kind of nervous. He had a lot of noise, a lot of bright colors. And as soon as he came out of the water, he was just as mellow. And he just laid back and just had the best time. The smile on his face you haven't seen in a long time. That's how excited he was. That's a lot of people at Folly Beach, South Carolina. It is. If you're just listening, we'll talk about it. That's one of the smaller camps. But one thing that you and I talked about a little bit before that I want to bring back to people's attention is this whole idea of when a child with autism goes into a place like a beach where there's a lot of things going on, it's for you and me, we have the filters to bring those sensory inputs down. But for a child with autism, it's all coming in, all at full bore, isn't it? The bright lights, the noise, the people, it's all coming in. And for them to be there and overcome all that is an amazing feat just in itself. Absolutely amazing, because now not only are they hearing all the sounds and surrounded by people, there's people touching them. People they don't know are throwing a life jacket, a wet life jacket onto them and picking them up and carrying them out to god only knows where. It's kind of crazy. But what we do is we try to prepare our families and our children as much as we possibly can. We do have social stories. We have a social story that will go up on our local website, which is surfershealingnc.org. We'll have a social story that goes up so that parents can talk to their children about things that are going to go on that day so that they can mentally prepare, whether we know they understand it or not. And then when they get to the beach, they can go through a social story. Another thing to put children's minds at ease and something fun that Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue and Wrightsville Beach Fire Department does for us is we have like our camp is on Monday, but on Sunday afternoon, we do a meet and greet for families where they can meet with our local rescue people, our local water safety people, which will be our volunteers, but they can meet with Ocean Rescue and the fire department so they can ask their questions about the gamut. It never, ever, ever fails that it is always shark week, always shark week during surfer season. How that happens, I don't know. But of course, we have all these questions about jellyfish. You've got the rip currents. You've got sharks. You've got the board hitting me. You've got all of these things. And we try to ease the parents' minds so that they can meet with Ocean Rescue, but also our safety team so that they know that safety is of our utmost concern. Another thing is storms rolling up. I mean, we have storms roll up all the time out of the blue. And how do we handle those? And we've got direct contact with Ocean Rescue. They keep up with everything and anything that's going on. There's only been, out of the 20 years, we've only been, you know, we've only been able asked to leave the beach one time. And it was a severely bad storm. We're a rain or shine event. We will surf right through the rain. But if it's lightning and thundering, just like Ocean Rescue does on a normal day, if it's within a certain feet or a certain mile from the ocean, they will remove everyone from the beach. But guess what? It'll roll through like it always does and we'll get right back to surfing. So don't go anywhere. We're still doing it. It is the dedication of our volunteers. The dedication of the Surfer's Healing Team is absolutely amazing. But the trust that the families put into us, it's absolutely amazing. And another level of safety, because we do have so many volunteers, our volunteer coordinator does a really good job at vetting people. She'll look you up. She'll figure out who you are. You have to register two weeks before the event. Unfortunately, we do that because of the safety of our family and children. But what we also do to add a level of safety that people might not recognize is every single year we design a volunteer t-shirt for our volunteers. And that design is brand new every single year. The t-shirt color is new every single year. And no one sees it except for myself, our volunteer coordinator, and our screen printer. So that when families come off of the shuttle and there's 30 people there saying, hey, let me help you to the beach, you know who you can trust. Because they're going to have this one-of-a-kind, brand-new, see, this is one of our t-shirts. Is that this year or is that from last year? This year's isn't designed yet. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It will not be released until the morning of camp. Period. End of story. No one will see it. So we just want to add that level of protection so that you know, like, we have a volleyball tournament coming up Saturday at Captain Bill's. I would love for everyone to come out, visit, ask more questions about Surfer's Healing, but also get your Surfer's Healing flag. Because all of these were, we have t-shirts from camps over the last few years. Whatever we use for camp for our volunteers turns around and becomes our merchandise. But you can come buy a t-shirt Saturday. Just know that our volunteers' t-shirt at camp is going to be completely different. So these are one-of-a-kind. Once they're gone, they're gone. We're going to put links to all of that in the podcast notes. Nikki, none of this is cheap to put on. There is a cost to everything. Even just one area, the surfers that are coming in, they are world-class surfers. They are. And you saw a few of them in those videos. I'd like to say I used to have that kind of body. I never had that kind of body. But they're not charging you. But you have to get them here. And you have to house them. You've got the food that you give to the families. Because the families pay nothing for this. Absolutely nothing. Where do you get your funding from? Some of the costs that we have, we do pay for surfers healing. We send them a check every year. And that check goes to paying for travel expenses, hotels, and insurance. I don't think anyone realizes that insurance is astronomical. And then everything else here, every child gets a trophy at the end of the day. So we have to buy trophies. We buy t-shirts. Every child gets a t-shirt. Permits. I just went today and applied for our permits at Racel Beach. Come on, Board of Aldermen. You love surfers neatly. I'm going to interrupt for everything. Because conservatives generally don't like every child getting a trophy. But in this case, every child who goes in and attempts this stuff is a winner and deserves to be recognized this way. That's the thing, is we're not giving you a trophy just for showing up. They work for this trophy. Every child goes out and catches three waves. And after that, they come get their trophy. So yes, they absolutely work and deserve their well-deserved trophies. And they're absolutely amazing. We also have a lot of equipment that we have to pay for. We have our own life jackets. Izzy and his team have some life jackets that have handles and just certain buckles that work better. Because if you YouTube surfers healing and especially surfers healing Racel Beach, you can see there's some of the smaller children that are a little bit harder to get to stand up on the board. So we found some life jackets that really work well with that. And they're not cheap. So we provide the life jackets for every size child. Some other things, tents and tables. Of course, the trophies. We have some PA equipment. And then we need a place to store it every year. So we have to pay for our storage unit. Shuttles. We have the shuttle that comes back and forth. We need to get porta potties so that the families have a place to use the bathroom. As far as the food and water is concerned, the most amazing thing is almost all the food is donated for the day. Almost. And so we're extremely lucky in that aspect. A lot of people really believe in us. But our community, it's been hard with the political spectrum the way that it's been lately. But being from the special needs community, I can tell you, Racel Beach and New Hanover County really come together for surfers healing. There's not many people that have turned away. We don't ask a whole lot either because we don't want to take advantage. We know there's other nonprofits out there that have a lot of needs as well. But it's been good. God has been good to us. And in turn, we're turning it around and making sure that we're good to these families. So two questions. First off, those folks who want to donate, whether it is their time or their talents or, more importantly, their money. Let's talk about that first. How do they get in touch with you to do that? So we have a website here in town. We have our own website at surfershealingnc.org. The national website is surfershealing.org. If you want to donate to the national, that will get dispersed to all of the camps or the camps that aren't able to raise their own money. But then for us, it's surfershealingnc.org. We also have a Facebook page, Instagram. We may have an ex. I'm not sure. I can't remember. I can't. It's hard. Mickey Draftsmen, ladies and gentlemen, the icon of social media. I am horrible at ex. Horrible. But we do have events. We have fundraising events throughout the year. Like I said, Saturday, we have our volleyball tournament. Please come see us. Come buy a t-shirt or a hat. Look, I got these cool hats. You don't have those. These are handmade hats. These are handmade hats, just so you know. So come get a hat. Come buy a raffle ticket. Come bid on a silent auction item. Or just come say hello or tell us that you want to get on our mailing list and you want to be a volunteer. Just come see us this weekend at Captain Bill's. Also, our friends at High Tide Roofing are going to host a pickleball tournament for us July 19th. Nice. There's a pickleball. I can't remember the name of it. Oh, gosh, I'm in so much trouble. There's a pickleball place downtown that they're going to host a fundraiser for us on July 19th. Thank you, Pat and High Tide Flooring. And then at Muni in October, I want to say October 19th. It's a Monday. We love our Mondays. Don't ask it. Maybe it's because everybody's blah on Mondays. We're like, let's make Monday great. But we're going to have a golf tournament at Muni, which is usually a lot of fun. So even if you're not able to donate money, I know money can be tight sometimes. If you have an item that you want to donate to our raffle, our silent auction, or you want to donate your time, I am constantly looking for someone to come help me do inventory or help reorganize our storage unit. We have to go through all of our tents and tables after being in the salt water and the salt air at the beach. We have to go through them all and make sure they still work. They rush through amazingly quickly. So yeah, and if anyone is good at websites, I would love some help. I'm doing it. We're doing it. We're making it happen. And then if you are a parent of an autistic child, how do they get in touch with you to get their names on the list to be part of this thing? So to register for camp, you do have to go through National. We don't do that here locally. So the National website is surfershealing.org. You click on schedule and scroll down until you see Rightful Beach and it'll say register here. You have until Friday to register for camp. And like I said, it's a lottery. So saying it's a lottery and if you don't get in, come down to our camp anyway. There are so many families that either their children aren't interested in surfing anymore or they didn't get into camp, but they come anyway because it's become somewhat of a reunion of all of us getting together. Some of these families come from as far away as Alaska and New York. Something else that people don't realize is every camp that Surfer's Healing has has a different flavor to it. It runs differently. The people are different or how they do it. It's just different. And if you want to do a 5K, you're going to go up to Virginia Beach. If you want more of the beach hanging out, small town vibe, you're going to Folly Beach. And then we've got our own vibe here that some people, it just resonates. So they keep coming back to us. So if it's your first time doing Surfer's Healing, I highly suggest trying to hit each one of the camps and figure out which one suits your family best. And then we have some that don't get in and come anyway. So come anyway. Come enjoy a beach day where you can just be. Just be. Nikki Bastian, you see her every week here on the podcast, but this is one area that is just near and dear to her heart. If she had to give up everything except for one thing, she'd probably just hold on to this one thing. So Nikki, I'll give you the final word. Well, not only that, but Surfer's Healing is a family thing. I have pictures of my adult children at camp every single year, me pregnant at every single camp, and every pregnancy going to camp. My kids work at camp. Oh, the best part. We have phenomenal surfers here, too. So Izzy and the Surfer's Healing crew has poached a few of our local surfers for their traveling team. So yeah, don't think that just because these are professional surfers from all over the world, we have some pretty amazing surfers here, too, that Izzy has poached from us. Another thing for families to check out is Izzy does have a book called Scratching the Horizons that talks about how hard autism was for his young family and how it almost tore them apart. So it's not always nice to hear those bad stories, but when you're going through a hard time, it's nice to know that you're not alone. Really good book to check out, Scratching the Horizons by Izzy Paskowitz. I thank him and Daniel every day for giving me this opportunity. I've been with Surfer's Healing for 19 years as the volunteer coordinator and the last five years as the local director, and it is a blessing beyond a blessing for me and my family. This is definitely a family affair. I've had all four of my kids at that camp. I'm still working on that, but now that my daughter lives in Ohio, I can't get her back down here as easily, but we try. The actual camp is in August. What day in August? It's a Monday, Monday, August 19th. Registration is right now at surfershealing.org. So get on there, register. You should hear within 48 hours after camp is closed whether you got in or not. We will put all those links on our website. Don't forget the volleyball tournament coming up this Saturday, and then all the other things that are scheduled that are on Nicky's website are all there. This is a really, really great thing to support. Nicky Baskin, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very, very much for talking about Surfer's Healing. As I said, Nicky is with us every week. This is, again, a Nicky and Will podcast experience, but this is something we wanted to talk about as we are getting closer to the day. So for the Wilmington Conservative, I am Rule Sample. And I'm Nicky Baskin. And thank you very much for joining us.