The first of two summer sessions of learning and skill development culminated in a celebratory leap off Scripps Pier.
The first session of the four-week San Diego Junior Lifeguard program has come to an end and the 650 child participants celebrated by facing their fears and jumping off Scripps Pier in La Jolla June 30.
Another pier jump will follow with about 750 more kids after the second session closes.
Video by Provisions Media
This 35th annual, joyful spectacle is “the big kahuna” of the popular program, said Heather Rabe, Junior Lifeguards program manager, “but the program is so much more than the pier jump.”
Over the four weeks, the children, ages nine to 17, learn “skills for life” that include personal safety, self-confidence, teamwork, group cohesiveness, healthy habits, leadership, setting goals, awareness of the ocean environment and more.
The participants achieve this through physical tasks like running, swimming, paddling, surfing, boogie boarding, stand up paddleboarding and more while learning from San Diego lifeguards the components of a rescue, lifeguard communications, radio codes, topography familiarization from Black’s Beach south through Sunset Cliffs and more.
One goal, for example, is completing a buoy swim, making it to a buoy 250 meters past the shoreline and back.
“It’s not a summer camp,” Rabe said. “We call it a program for a reason, because it’s curriculum-based, and it’s fun, but it’s hard work.”
Many of the activities are essential for San Diegans, she said, as kids who live coastally will eventually go to the beach unsupervised.
“Junior Guards is a great way for parents to make sure their kid knows how to handle themselves in the open ocean,” Rabe said.
The junior lifeguards also balance physical with mental work and are encouraged past their comfort zone to ensure the transfer of skills beyond the beach, she said.
“When they go out into the real world, they can take some of these skills … and use them toward becoming good, contributing citizens to society.”
The pier jump, which has taken place at Scripps in La Jolla since 2024 following the closure of the Ocean Beach Pier, “is a huge bonding experience” that solidifies the program’s lessons, Rabe said.
Rabe extended gratitude to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for allowing the Junior Lifeguard program to continue to use the pier, noting the San Diego lifeguards and SIO have an “important relationship.”
The jump is sponsored by the Prevent Drowning Foundation, which aims to provide free swim lessons to underserved youth and provides about 60 scholarships annually to the Junior Lifeguard program.
