It’s no overstatement to say that we regularly feel pure amazement and deep gratitude at the community that seems to be growing around our little passion of building wood boards. But every now and then, we learn of a story that literally confronts us with how important this widening circle can be. What we’re taught on these occasions is that far more is happening here than just building boards, surfing whenever we can, and giving people the chance to do that too. Even our simple hope to change attitudes about disposable surfboards and reduce the harmful impacts of surf lifestyles pales in comparison.

One of these events occurred almost a year ago. Literally a life-and-death story, it strikes the kind of dramatic note that files everything else in the “so-what” drawer. It’s the story of a young man that simply died for no reason. Suddenly, with the deepest possible loss to those that knew him, he was killed in a car accident after a Thanksgiving Day of surfing, family and friends.

What connects this guy to Grain is that he had a deep interest in working with wood, creating, and surfing – so much so that he had a mildly zealous aspiration to attend a Grain Board Building Workshop. But he was taken just before he was supposed to attend. His story is told by family members in the Board Stories section of our site.

On an inspiration that she credited to her recently departed son, his mom Karen decided on the spur of the moment to accept donations in lieu of flowers at his memorial. She knew instantly she wanted to send some other kids to learn to build boards and so donations would be put to that purpose. When we learned about it, we thought about ways we might be able to help Jordan and his family touch even more kids. We called our friends at Stoked Mentoring, a 501(c)3 non-profit that helps kids to collect life skills and role models in board sports professions and through board sports related activities. The result is that we’re going to help them develop programming that’ll get kids – who might normally never have it – access to some of the things that inspired Jordan. Now this fund can reach much farther than Karen might have originally imagined, and Jordan’s wheels will spin on.

Our thanks to Peter, James, Tyler, Steve, Karen and Billy for all their generous help during this past year to create Jordan’s fund at Stoked Mentoring.

With media ownership worldwide accreted into the fat greasy hands of fewer and fewer mind-control freaks, it’s comforting to know that participation in the new media is open to people who are selling only heart and soul. Two of these are Cyrus Sutton and Ryan Tater. Their websites are go-to spots for those interested in do-it-yourself-surfing (Cyrus) and surf-related arts of all kinds (Ryan). They stopped by the shop just as hurricane Bill was leaving for an afternoon of pics and talk.

Cyrus’ efforts are very close to our hearts. His site, www.korduroy.tv is a repository for deeply artistic and fascinating short films that tell you how to make your own racks, wax, all kinds of things – even beer coasters. Also posted there are stories about people that build their own boards, with info on how you can too. It’s a one-stop enabler for those with an interest in cleaning up their surfing act by doing it all with less.

Shakas and Singlefins seems like it has to be the world’s fastest growing surf art portal. Ryan continues to accumulate art of all kinds there, film, painting, writing, announcements of events, interviews and more. You can spend forever just paging through all the interesting stuff there. A very soulful guy with nothing but good vibes and good things to say, it was a real pleasure to meet him.

The idea of building your own surfboard is what got Grain started to begin with, and we started putting together kits so that everyone else could too, so we feel a real kinship with what drives Cyrus. And our own collusion with artists like Ty Williams, Nick LaVecchia, and Scott Lenhardt give us a real appreciation for what Ryan hath wrought. Great to have them by for the day.

From left to right: John, Brad, Ryan, Doug, Cyrus, Nolan and Mike

Bottom two photos courtesy of Ryan Tater

Hot off the press and into the Grain shop, our newest graphic T-shirt has arrived and is available to you. An original Ty Williams illustration. We love our ’66 Grumman too much to not wear it around. Premium fabric is made from 70% organic bamboo, 30% organic cotton. Made from the fastest growing plant on earth. People are going to want to touch you.
Men’s and Women’s styles and colors available.

* Men’s logo shirts have also been replenished. No need to worry.