For Children, Gift of the Sea : Program Offers Troubled Kids Fun and, for Some, a Wave of Calm

Diana is 12 and grew up in Southern California. But until Tuesday, she had never seen the ocean.

Her brown eyes wide with excitement, she ran back to the shore after taking her first plunge into the surf on Tuesday morning. “The waves!” she squealed in excitement. “I like the waves. And the water tastes like salt!”

For Diana and nine of her friends, Tuesday was a very special day at Huntington State Beach. The 10 girls, ages 9 through 14, live together in one of the cottages at Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange. They are all wards of the court. All were placed in the county-operated home because they had been abused or neglected or abandoned by their parents or guardians.

But a new program at Orangewood now gives the children a chance for an all-day field trip to the ocean. It’s a welcome break from a life that can be all too bleak.

“These kids normally wouldn’t get a chance to go to the beach,” said Dennis Gilmour, 33, an Orangewood teacher who accompanied the group Tuesday. “That’s what’s so nice about this. We bring the kids here in small groups, and the lifeguards work with them, giving them experiences the kids normally wouldn’t get. . . . It’s the kind of personal experience that maybe you and I grew up with in our families, but it’s being given to these kids through the lifeguards.”

Rick Reisenhofer, 32, a lifeguard at Huntington State Beach, enjoys the opportunity to work with the children.

“I see changes that happen from the time they arrive in the morning to the time they leave in the early afternoon,” Reisenhofer said. “In the morning, a lot of them are kind of in a shell. But by the end of a day, they come out from that shell a little bit--sometimes a lot--and so you feel like you’ve accomplished something.”

Gilmour said the idea for the program came two or three years ago from Bud Brown, a lifeguard formerly at San Clemente State Beach. At first, the trips were infrequent. This summer, Orangewood and the state lifeguards arranged for regular weekly trips to the beach. Now every child gets a chance to visit the ocean.

The groups vary by age and sex according to the cottage they live in. Sometimes the visitors are all boys; sometimes, as on Tuesday, they’re all girls.

The youngsters arrived Tuesday in a van driven by one of their counselors, Mary Lasley, and accompanied by Gilmour. Lifeguard Reisenhofer, in his blue uniform, met the group as it drove up to the lifeguard headquarters.

“Hi,” he said. “My name is Rick, and I’m a lifeguard here.”

Some of the children looked at him suspiciously.

“Sure you’re not a cop?” one girl asked.

Reisenhofer smiled. “Yes, I’m also a peace officer,” he said. “But most of the time I’m a lifeguard. I work here to make it safe for people, to make sure everyone has a safe, fun time.”

The girls followed the lifeguard inside the headquarters. Reisenhofer drew on a blackboard, illustrating safety at the beach. The girls smiled as he sketched a bear wearing sunglasses and carrying suntan oil. They laughed as he involved them in one-on-one safety instruction.

“Now, if you have trouble in the water, don’t just yell, ‘Help!’ ” Reisenhofer said. “Yell: ‘Help! Lifeguard! Help!’ Can you repeat that?”

The girls did. Loudly. And they laughed.

After a trip to the top of the lifeguard tower, the girls walked to the water’s edge and put their towels on the beach. Then, with squeals of joy and fear, they ran into the water. Two lifeguards joined them in the water, as did their counselor, Lasley.

Gilmour stood on the shore, watching the lifeguards offer the girls pointers on water safety.

The children, he said, sometimes are afraid of adults. And it’s no wonder: 24% of the children entering Orangewood have been physically or emotionally abused; 23% have been sexually molested; 35% have been neglected; 15% are from destitute or homeless families; 2% have been abandoned by their parents, and 1% have a variety of other problems.

“These children have had many problems, and some of them just haven’t had the chance to be kids,” Gilmour said. “That’s why this beach program is such a good thing.

“I’d say the No. 1 gain from this program is the positive adult role models these children see. Through these lifeguards, these kids are learning to trust adults. They’re at an age now when they’re starting to understand the world, and for some of them, this is the time that they start understanding what happened to them. When they were little children, it wasn’t clear to them what happened. So it’s a tough time for them, and it’s good to have positive adult role models.”

Gilmour said another positive aspect of the beach program is the rare bit of solitude--and the short departure from routine at Orangewood--it offers the children.

“Watch it, and you’ll see,” he said. “They’ll start to relax, and they’ll find a place for themselves on the beach, and they’ll just be themselves for a day. It’s a good learning experience. You and I know that people often come to the beach when they’re feeling down or whatever, and now these kids are learning that they can find a real soothing experience just being here by the ocean.”

As Gilmour predicted, some of the girls from time to time broke away from the group and sat alone on the sand, looking at the water.

“I like the waves,” said Maria, 10, as she gazed at the sea. In the distance, three pelicans slowly hovered over the water, then dove in search of a fish. The September sun warmed the sand. A soft breeze from the ocean carried a salty tang.

Reisenhofer looked at the group of laughing, grinning girls, and smiled himself. “I just like the whole idea of this,” he said.