East Hampton residents, Stewart Lane and Bonnie Comley, brought their three children to the beach to participate. “It’s a great way to turn an afternoon at the beach into a charitable event. You can spend the day building a sand castle while talking to your kids about how lucky we are and how important it is to give back to others”, said Comley. “ My 13 year old has a good understanding of charity but my 4 year old twins- not so much! We are still working on sharing the shovel, which is another good lesson of a sand castle contest.”

With a concept formulated in 1991, the 1st Annual East Hampton Sand Castle Contest, took place on August 26, 1992 at the Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, NY. The mission of The Clamshell Foundation is to enrich the lives of the people of the East End by fostering education in health, cultural, and environmental fields of endeavor. The money raised is allocated to year round residents for scholarships, food banks and assistance to those in need.

Rossetti Perchik, Clamshell Foundation Executive Director, derived the idea of the sand castle contest in East Hampton while living in Oklahoma. "In Tulsa they had a Sand Castle Contest on the banks of the Arkansas River, which ran through the west side of town. A dam run by the Army Corps of Engineers controlled the river. A week before the contest, the Engineers would slow the outflow and drop the water level so you would have more sand. When I moved back to East Hampton, I couldn’t imagine, with one of the best beaches in the world, that there wasn’t a contest", recalled Perchik.

For more information on the Clamshell Foundation see:

www.clamshellfoundation.org