A Walk on Water and Thanks for All the Phineas & Ferb

Summer started beneath the shade of a large, ambiguous tree with nothing but a stepbrother and a dream. It kind of took off from there, building so much more than memories (like a roller coaster, a spaceship, a giant paper airplane, treehouse robots, and so forth and so on).

Disney’s Phineas and Ferb, the engaging animated program that has been a hit for as long as your kids can remember (2007) is ending on June 12, 2015 with an episode titled “Last Day of Summer,” and that’s just a bit on the nose, don’t you think?

Ironic that we are in the process of planning our respective summer vacations even as the template against which all summer vacations will forever be judged is streaming into the proverbial sunset.

Aren’t we too young to say goodbye to Phineas and Ferb? Yes. Yes we are.

However, one lucky Dads 4 Change reader is going to have an easier time than the rest of us—we’re giving away an original piece of artwork by Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (above), who co-created the show with Dan Povenmire after they both worked on The Simpsons (also, Rocko’s Modern Life). That’s right, an original sketch by the voice of Major Francis Monogram. It’s signed and everything.

But first, some backstory: Swampy Marsh does a lot of work for A Walk on Water, a non-profit that provides water therapy for kids with special needs through guided surf instruction. AWOW is (and I’m just taking this right from their website because if it ain’t broke and all that) “a humanitarian and environmentally conscious organization with an eye on sustainability.”

Bottom line, they’re good people doing good stuff, and we can totally see why Swampy loves them.

Here’s how you can win:

Tweet* a fun message to Dads 4 Change, A Walk on Water and Swampy using the hashtag #Dads4Surf between now and 11:59 p.m. PST on Sunday, June 14, 2015. Be cool, follow them, too. You may enter as many times as you like, but don’t be weird about it. The winner will be chosen at random from all tweets (assuming they address all three handles and use said hashtag) and contacted via Twitter on Monday, June 15. Winner will need to provide a mailing address via DM or email (contact us here). Open to residents of the U.S. and Canada.

In closing, please enjoy this photo of me and my boys (who haven’t built a single roller coaster in any season) with Phineas and Ferb co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh at a previous event, so many summers ago (two, I think).

Thanks for the best 104 days ever, fellas!

*Not on Twitter but still want to enter? Share this post on Facebook (you’re on Facebook, right?) and use the #Dads4Surf hashtag. Tag A Walk on Water and Dads 4 Change (not sure Swampy is on FB, will update once verified) if it will let you, Facebook is weird sometimes.

Whit Honea is the co-founder of Dads 4 Change, the Social Media Director and Community Manager of Dad 2.0 Summit as well as a Senior Account Executive at the conference’s parent company: XY Media Group. Deemed “the activist dad” by UpWorthy (and one of the “funniest dads on Twitter” by Mashable), he is a regular contributor to The Modern Dads Podcast and the author of The Parents’ Phrase Book—a family guide to empathy.