Dakine has partnered with the Rob Machado Foundation, Mizu Bottles and Reef to bring clean drinking water to public schools. The group kicked off the initiative with a recent event at Haiku Elementry School in Maui, HI, focused on keeping single-use plastic out of watersheds while giving children access to purified water.

Albee Layer and Paige Alms, both surfers on the Dakine team and Haiku School alumni, helped distribute reusable bottles to use in the recent installation of purified water stations—funded by Dakine, Reef and Skyline Eco Adventures—throughout the school.

Staff from Dakine, RMF and Mizu, along with fellow pro surfers Kai Lenny, Tai Simpson-Kane and Jesse Richmond, spent the afternoon providing awareness and education on the importance of drinking clean water, as well as the risks of contamination to water sources caused by single-use waste from plastic cups and bottles.

Partnering with RMF and Mizu is the first of many environmentally focused initiatives for Dakine in 2018. Since joining the brand in July 2016, Dakine CEO Ken Meidell has initiated a companywide movement to support efforts regarding mitigating the effects of climate change, better public land recreation policy within the U.S. and supporting clean water, healthy ocean and coastlines and accessible beaches for all.

Meidell was recently appointed to the board of directors of The Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves and beaches, as well as Public Land Solutions, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing comprehensive recreation planning and stakeholder coordination to support effective and sustainable public land solutions.

For more information on Dakine’s sustainability efforts, please visit dakine.com/en-us/respect/.

Photo courtesy Dakine