The following article was taken from: href="http://www.thesharksfoundation.com/news/news.asp?story_id=29&apid=71388292322">http://www.thes
harksfoundation.com/news/news.asp?story_id=29&apid=71388292322

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From the Sharks to the Sea
May 29, 2008

For the community in Santa
Cruz, California there is no line in the sand between sea life and life.  In a community that eats,
sleeps, and breathes sea air it is only appropriate to have a resource center dedicated to teaching
others about the deep, blue sea. 

On May 27, 2008 the Sharks Foundation presented a
check in the amount of $15,000 to O'Neill Sea Odyssey (OSO), a local non-profit orgniazation that
focuses on providing marine science curriculum for low-income youth around the Bay Area.  style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';
mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The Sharks
Foundation grant will be used for the sole benefit of classes visiting from
Santa Clara
County and will help off-set the costs of chartering
boats, as well as supplies associated with the program.  On the scene were, appropriately,
S.J. Sharkie and several Foundation board members. 

"Oceanic conservation is vital to our
community, and especially a team named for one of the most well-known creatures of the sea," said
Sharks Foundation Manager Laura Johnston.  "We are thrilled
to assist OSOs efforts to promote conservation to youth in Santa
Clara County."

OSO was
founded in 1996 by wetsuit innovator and surfer Jack O'Neill. A living classroom was created on
board a 65-foot catamaran sailing in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary where 4th - 6th grade
students from schools throughout Central California receive hands-on lessons about the marine
habitat and the importance of the relationship between the living sea and the environment. The
program is conducted on board the catamaran with follow-up lessons at the shore-side Education
Center at the Santa Cruz Harbor. It is free of charge, but students earn their way into the program
by designing and performing a project to benefit their community.

Board members had the
opportunity to tour the boat as well as the Education
Center and were very impressed by the depth of
instruction provided by OSO's dedicated staff. 

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"This program doesn't just teach children
about the ocean, but gets them to really think about how their actions at home, miles and miles
away, has the power to hurt or improve the ocean.  For
some, you can tell its something they never thought about before," said Jim Sparaco, Foundation
board member.

Most of OSO's work involves a one-day field trip supplemented by curriculum
for participating classes to use before and after the field trip. In addition, the Adam Webster
Memorial Fund provides the program for cognitively and physically challenged individuals. 
The program's curriculum is designed to support the educational goals of the schools that
participate and each of the subjects taught align with both California state and federal education
standards. The three subjects taught are marine science, marine and watershed ecology, and
navigation/mathematics.

"Our organization has seen a trend in its low-income student
participants that when they enter the program they have a lower-level understanding of their
physical environment than that of their peers," said Dan Haifley, Executive Director for O'Neill Sea
Odyssey.  "We find that at the end of our program students have caught up in their environmental
education and are poised with excitement to further their understanding of the sea.  Being the only
absolutely free program of its kind for low-income families, this program will be able to continue
its vision of free education through the direct donation of this $15,000 grant from the Sharks
Foundation."

OSO has served 50,000 students since its inception. In 2005 the program
received the prestigious California Governors Award in Economic and Environmental Leadership and
Senator Barbara Boxer's Conservation Champion Award.

For more information on O'Neill Sea
Odyssey, to volunteer or make a donation, please visit href="http://www.oneillseaodyssey.org/">http://www.oneillseaodyssey.org/ or call Dan Haifley at
(831) 465-9390.