We are thrilled to announce that the Huntington Beach Junior Lifeguards are going back to New Zealand to continue the historic junior lifeguard exchange, which was established in 1979. The trip is focused around lifesaving and cultural education. After interviews and a challenging selection process, the HBJG New Zealand Exchange Team has been selected. Congratulations! More information about each of the coaches and team members coming soon.
Huntington Beach Fire Outreach Foundation
We will be hosting New Zealand's Piha and Tairua Junior Lifeguard this summer of 2024. Our team travels to New Zealand in December 2024 to January 2025. There are plenty of logistics and expenses that go into this trip, hence the team and coaches will have a variety of different fundraising campaigns. We hope our Junior Lifeguard families and community will support this team as they prepare for this amazing opportunity.
The team is hitting the ground running with different fundraisers. We look forward to many fun fundraiser activities to come. Please welcome us and congratulating this exceptional team!
The team is at 31% of their goal. You can donate by using the Huntington Beach Fire Outreach Foundation QR code.
HBJG New Zealand Coaches and Team Members
New Zealand
TESTIMONIALS
2013
"On behalf of Mathew, Erin & myself I would like to thank the HBJG instructors, and the hosting families for accommodating our team of junior guards from Tairua, New Zealand. We are extremely privileged to be spending two weeks in the HBJG programme which I know to be one of the best in the world.
Tairua beach is a 1.4km stretch of beautiful white sand on the north east coast of New Zealand.
Tairua is only a small town of around 2,000 permanent residents, however this population swells to around 20,000 people over the summer holiday period. Most of our team live in neighboring larger cities and travel to Tairua on weekends and holidays with their families to patrol the beach and enjoy the other activities that make Tairua a great place. Our team are all volunteers (as are the majority of NZ guards), so we are looking forward to experiencing HB which conducts more rescues in one year than the whole of NZ does in one year, has a junior guard programme 10 times the size of ours, and has professional and well trained guards and instructors.Thank you again for having us, and we look forward to seeing you all very soon!"- Sean Ridler Tairua Surf Lifesaving Team
2016
"On behalf of the Tairua exchange students and our surf club we would just like to say, sincerely thank you very much for your the past two weeks and the opportunities of which you provided for our students. Once again this exchange has proven to be extremely beneficial to the students. All of your individual efforts combined contributed to something that these students will never ever experience again. They have made life long friends, memories and learnt a tonne of information they did not already know.
A sincere thanks goes out to your families, we witnessed it first hand but our NZ parents were extremely impressed and thankful their children were in safe hands during our stay. They are extremely excited to return the favor in December hosting your students. Please pass on my thanks to everyone of your instructors. Our students were extremely overwhelmed as to how good your instructors are at what they do. The atmosphere they create with your kids is something special and for our students to be apart of that was an eye opener for them all. Right now, I am reminiscing the good times and memories from this exchange. It is extremely hard to switch back into ‘work mode’ after such a positive and enjoyable time. We now look forward to preparing and hosting for your visit."- Matt Kerr, Club Captain, Trust Waikato Tairua Surf Life Saving Club (Inc.)
