A New Surf Culture
Our founder Tom Bauer found himself dissatisfied with surf culture after moving to Hawaii to pursue his dreams of being a surf bum as a boy. He decided that it was better to serve the people around him than to use surfing as something to glorify a wild partying lifestyle. Tom and his wife Cindy started Surfing The Nations with the goal of mobilizing the surfing community to “give back” and be a blessing to the world around them. The first internship began in 1999 as an experiment in impacting the local community in Kalihi, and grew steadily, capturing the hearts of hundreds of surfers and adventure seekers looking to grow and serve others.
STN Today
We are Surfing The Nations, a non-profit, humanitarian organization, run entirely by volunteers. Our desire is to see lives changed inside and outside of our organization, locally and internationally. We are a community made up of people who believe in using their talents and passions – from surfing and beyond – to give back and share a message of love and hope. We believe surfers have a unique call on their lives: to GO — to use their thirst for adventure to bring them to the places of the world that are in need. We want to give surfers a purpose and a desire to serve others and build friendships all over the world.
Sweden
Swedes have had a long term relationship with STN dating back to its founding days in Kalihi, Hawaii. It wasn’t until hundreds of Swedish volunteers and 13 years later that STN Sweden was formed by the master mind Erik Josefsson. It became a place for returning Swedes, to continue serving in the colder climate. In late 2012 Stefan & Christy Eriksson relocate from STN Hawaii back to Sweden to help with STN Sweden. In 2017 the Eriksson’s took the risk to relocate STN Sweden to sweden. The “Gateway to the mountain world” one of the coldest areas of Sweden. With much anticipation they are thrilled to introduce several new ideas and programs to further enhance the STN brand while still coinciding with STN’s values.
Bigger Than We Thought
Moving forward, STN continues to expand internationally with the beginning of new bases in Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Huntington Beach, California along with the prospect of many more bases to come in other places around the world. After cementing the culture and structure of an STN base with our “thruster model”, we are truly ready to start a new network of bases around the world.