Nineteen-year-old Koby Oberholzer, who has surfing in his genes, is a talented youngster on the qualifying series (QS) and has gained enough points to join the overseas QS events. His first stretch will start in Indonesia proceeding to Sri Lanka and Philippines Island.
If Koby succeeds in these contests he would like to head to Hawaii which will be the next stretch. However, he lacks funding and sponsors to make his dream possible. With the help of crowd funding on various social media platforms for the past three weeks, an incredible R53 000 was raised unfortunately it is still not sustainable for two months of travelling. Koby is also the son of South African surf legend Frankie who inspired a generation of surfers.
His mother, Lisa Oberholzer hopes that the community will rally together to support her son. “We all know the financial climate in South Africa and the state of the Rand coupled with a surf industry that is nearly crippled. Our athletes struggle to get the financial backing to have a chance in the surfing world. Hopefully we can get him on a role that we see him finish the year in Hawaii on the North shore for the season. We want this to be a sustainable effort so that Koby is completely financially self sufficient through money from sponsorships and events but that can only be achieved by providing funding initially to give him a global platform to show what he can do.”
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Koby still requires R30 000 for accommodation and living and travel expenses and the funds raised will assist him greatly.
“Koby on the North shore makes sense and he will attract the lenses that is for sure. I have left this quite late but I am hoping with the support of our local community we can make this happen in a very short period of time,” added Lisa. To assist Koby use the following bank details: Capitec, L Oberholzer, account number: 1302994342, branch code: 470010 or Capitec: Koby Oberholzer, account number: 1544334476, branch code: 470010.
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