Reef Relief launches first Conch Classic beach volleyball fundraiser at Higgs Beach

Reef Relief will turn Higgs Beach into a co-ed volleyball court on Saturday, May 9, for the first Conch Classic, a beach volleyball fundraiser designed to put the Key West nonprofit’s reef work in front of players, spectators and beachgoers in one of the island’s busiest public spaces.

The tournament is being billed as the first annual Conch Classic, and Reef Relief says every dollar raised will go directly to its conservation and education programs. The format is built for broad participation: teams will play 4-on-4, rosters are co-ed, at least one female player is required on each team and squads can include up to seven people. That setup opens the event to serious volleyball players, casual competitors and local groups looking for a day on the sand that still supports an environmental cause.

Higgs Beach gives the fundraiser a direct local-life stake. The county-owned park, officially Clarence S. Higgs Memorial Beach Park, spans about 16.5 acres on the Atlantic Ocean in Key West and includes the 400-foot Reynolds Street Pier. It also already has beach volleyball courts, making the site a natural fit for a tournament that aims to feel more like a community gathering than a formal gala. The beach’s ties to the Key West AIDS Memorial, the African Refugee Memorial and Fort West Martello add another layer of meaning to an event staged in a park that already carries recreation and remembrance side by side.

For Reef Relief, the Conch Classic fits into a broader mission that has stretched across 36 years. The organization says its early work included installing mooring buoys that were later turned over to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary system, and it has also used underwater transect photography and video to help scientists track reef change and identify new coral diseases. Today, Reef Relief says its programs include public education, advocacy, marine protected areas, stormwater outreach with the City of Key West and its management of the Key West Marine Park, which it took over in 2012 through that city partnership.

That history helps explain why the nonprofit is framing the tournament as more than a day at the beach. Reef Relief has described the event as “fun, competitive, and meaningful,” and the Conch Classic gives the group a fresh way to test whether sports can draw visible, local support for reef protection in a county where beaches, tourism and marine health are all tied together. If the first year lands, Higgs Beach could become a spring fixture for both volleyball and the conservation work that keeps the Keys’ shoreline part of the story.