San Clemente Lifeguard and Junior Guard Foundation

San Clemente Lifeguard & Junior Guard Foundation

The 2022 San Clemente Lifeguard Team

20222 LG Team Photo The 2022 San Clemente Lifeguard Team

Our Mission

The San Clemente Lifeguard & Junior Guard Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the safety and well-being of visitors to the beach through education, developing and building community partnerships, and obtaining resources to directly support the San Clemente Marine Safety Division’s Lifeguard and Junior Lifeguard programs. The Foundation also supports preservation of the history and memorabilia of San Clemente Lifeguarding.

Our Board

Our Board is made up of former San Clemente City lifeguards and community leaders who are dedicated to the safety of our beaches and supporting our Lifeguard and Junior Lifeguard programs.

Our Supporters and Partners

We receive financial support from The Positive Vibe Warrior Foundation and community organizations including Rainbow Sandals, the San Clemente Kiwanis, San Clemente Rotary, the San Clemente Junior Women’s Club, the San Clemente Clean Ocean Program and individual donors. In recent years, we have partnered with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center (SHACC) to put on educational events for community youth. Sponsors for those events included Vissla, Stance, Sonance, Bemus Landscaping, Dr. Warren Kramer, The Leisz Team Realtors, DSC Performance, and South Coast Distributors.

Our Activities

Lifeguard equipment and supplies – To help our lifeguards serve the public, we provide equipment and supplies that are not available through the City budget. Purchases have included an ocean observation drone, known as Pelican One, beach camera monitors that display live beach and swimmer activity video feeds in the Lifeguard dispatch center and a FLIR Scout III Thermal Imager for use in no/low light rescue situations. We have also provided Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) scholarships, water hydration bottles for all our lifeguards and binoculars for all new rookie lifeguards.

Junior Lifeguard scholarships and equipment – Our Junior Lifeguard program trains over 800 students between the ages of 9 – 17 each summer. They spend their days learning ocean safety and first aid, playing beach games, jumping off the pier and generally just having a fun time. Many of our Junior Lifeguards go on to become lifeguards.

To date, the foundation has provided 150 scholarships for an amount of just over $30,000. For 2022, we funded 10 Junior Lifeguard program scholarships, including program supplies. In addition to scholarships, we also sponsor educational field trips for cadets, entry fees for junior lifeguard competitions, and competition and water activity equipment like a C4 iMat floating platform, a GoPro Hero5 camera and new tug of war rope. We also sponsor a very popular annual Lifeguard and Junior Lifeguard Team surfing competition.

Educational events and programs – Partnering with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center, in 2018, we sponsored an evening with former world champion surfer Shaun Tomson, who spoke about his book “The Code.” In 2019, we sponsored a three-event “Role Model” series, where community youth and their families had the opportunity to meet with and hear from local young role models about ocean and surfing safety, how to “share the stoke,” and a special “Girl Power in the Ocean!” event. More than 500 young watermen and waterwomen and parents participated in these events. We recently hosted an evening with big wave champion and environmental activist Greg Long. Partnering with Metrolink, OCTA and the San Clemente Trolley we provide beach safety information for Metrolink and trolley passengers.

Clean Ocean Initiatives – Working with Orange County, our Foundation has adopted the underpass at Linda Lane. The “Adopt a Channel” program is similar to the “Adopt a Highway program”. We also recently received a grant from the City Clean Ocean Program. The grant funds are used to incorporate Clean Ocean concepts into the Junior Guard training curriculum.

Preserving Our Lifeguarding Heritage

We are making great progress in preserving the heritage of Station 56 by archiving historical photos and capturing memories of our experiences as lifeguards and junior guards. Check out our website at https://scljgfoundation.com/storyboard. There you will find Gallery and Storyboard pages that will take you back in time as you learn about the rich heritage of lifeguarding in San Clemente. We also regularly publish “West of the Tracks” articles in the San Clemente Journal and provide presentations to local service clubs and other groups.

Facts and Figures

More than 2.5 million people visit our City beach each year.

We have five full time and 45 seasonal ocean lifeguards. Last summer, our lifeguards performed: