The Fourth Annual Surf Film Festival started with a bang on Friday—sold out house, eats from Whole Foods, beer from Kona Brewing Co., wine from Barefoot & Bubbly, dessert from OnoPops, and the Hawai‘i premiere of Innersection.

We also held a raffle for a Surftech SUP board designed by Donald Takayama. Our associate director of development (and surfer) Eric Mascia did the drawing, and the winning ticket belonged to Layne Fitzpatrick. Congratulations Layne!

Born and raised on West O‘ahu, Layne has served all over the world—Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Belize—as part of the U.S. Army Veterinary Services. He is also the founder of Ohana Matters Educational Foundation, which aims to reverse the brain drain by offering scholarships to youth from disadvantaged parts of O‘ahu.

All that good work must have scored Layne a surplus of good karma. He didn’t even have a ticket for the festival’s opening night—he thought his wife had bought him one in advance, but it turned out she hadn’t managed to. He was talking to assistant film curator Abigail Algar at the theater box office, when some ladies with a spare ticket offered it to him.

Get this—Layne had been looking into SUP boards and Saturday night was talking to his friend about which one to get. And his birthday was two days later, to boot. He is considering donating the board to AccesSurf, but either way, plans to use it to “promote harmony for SUP and lessen the rift that has emerged between surfers and stand-up paddlers.”
The board couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person. And thank you Surftech for making this happen.
There’s one more board up for grabs—it will be raffled off on closing night, July 31. Here are the details. See you here!
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