Hundreds take Peer-2-Pier Challenge to spread peace and compassion

Hundreds of people linked hands while displaying messages of peace as they formed a “human wave of compassion” between Newport Beach’s two piers Sunday to commemorate Monday’s International Day of Peace.

Irvine-based Team Kids, which organizes youth, school and community service programs, presented the inaugural Peer-2-Pier Challenge, in which participants gathered to try to form a chain stretching 1.7 miles between Balboa Pier and Newport Pier.

The line stretched about one-third of that distance, but Team Kids also used the event to give its Wave of Compassion Award to Austin Kauffman, 13, from Vista Verde School in Irvine for his work with young cancer patients while battling cancer himself.

The event also honored Martin Richard, 8, who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

--Rob Vardon