Photos courtesy of San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation
About six years ago, from the balcony of her Coast Boulevard condominium in south La Jolla, Linda Nolan Polly witnessed a dramatic high-tide cliff rescue that would change her life — and the lives of many others.
“I was sitting out on my deck on a Sunday afternoon, and I watched 100 people standing there looking at something, and I think, ‘What are you people doing?’” Polly said. “All of a sudden, a lifeguard’s truck roars down, they stop in the yield area, jump out, grab their boards… and there’s some guy flailing in the water. I see them tear into the water. They get him out and revive him. They make sure he’s OK. Then they turn around, walk up the hill, put the boards back on, turn the truck around and drive back over to the tower.”
The stunned silence of the crowd wasn’t enough for Polly, whose background in journalism and public relations had accustomed her to celebrating success.
“I thought, ‘Does no one clap or cheer?’” she said.
That moment set off a chain of events that has transformed the lives of dozens of local lifeguards. Polly, an 81-year-old mother of two and grandmother of three, has spent years cooking homemade meals out of her kitchen for the crews. Most call her their “Lifeguard Angel” or “Saint Polly.”
One lifeguard, an artist, gave her pottery he’d made as thanks.
Polly recently gave La Jolla lifeguards a beach rescue Utility Task Vehicle and a personal watercraft WaveRunner— equipment she says is priceless for the lives it will save.
She’s also made a substantial gift to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation, which named her honorary chair of its Ready to Respond Gala this October. San Diego Lifeguard Services is a division of the Fire-Rescue Department.
“[Polly] is a familiar face at lifeguard towers, continuing to deliver meals, fund specialized equipment and champion the people who dedicate their lives to protecting others,” said Fire-Rescue Foundation Executive Director Wendy Moore.
Polly said she hopes a significant gift she’s making to the foundation in the coming weeks will be matched by other donors so that the nonprofit can provide more equipment, health and wellness support, training and technology for first responders.
She was honored again on Wednesday night, Aug. 12, at Ballast Point Brewery in Little Italy, receiving the Citizen of the Year award from the San Diego Lifesaving Association at its annual Hardy Awards.
Polly first won the honor in 2023 and said she wasn’t entirely comfortable with a second.
“I tried to ask them to give the award to someone else, but they said ‘no,’” she said.
Originally from Kansas and shaped by a Midwestern farming upbringing in Iowa, Polly learned early that neighbors help without being asked. Food has always been her love language — she even wrote a book about it, “Midwest Moms: Recipes & Advice from the Heartland,” in 2007.
Whenever her late husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Richard E. Polly, treated a patient she knew, a home-cooked meal would inevitably follow. She still shows up to her own doctors’ offices with cakes and hot meals today.
After her husband died in 2017, Polly moved from the Midwest to La Jolla, where the family had vacationed for decades, and turned that habit toward the local lifeguard towers.
The connection started with a walk. Polly said she once saw a vendor near the Children’s Pool “throwing his tchotchkes on the iceplant,” certain his heavy boxes would kill the greenery below.
“I rang the doorbell at the lifeguard station and told them what was happening,” she said. “They very nicely told me they don’t mete out punishment. So I walked back and scolded him myself.”
That encounter got her thinking about what lifeguards actually do — and, after learning their starting salaries, she decided to give them a perk the best way she knew how.
“I can cook — this is what I like to do with my time,” she said. “Everybody has hobbies, and mine is cooking.”
So began her weekly meal deliveries. Every week, a home-cooked meal for 20 to 30 people arrives at the station by 11:30 a.m., saving the crews a lunch run.
Her philosophy: “If you’re going to mess your kitchen up, you might as well do it all at once.”
Polly shops mostly locally, including the newly opened Pacific Beach Grocery Outlet, whose manager recently handed her gift cards once she learned who the food was for. At Costco, her cart full of rotisserie chicken often draws looks.
“People look at my basket filled with rotisserie chickens, and I say to them, ‘I don’t eat 12 chickens!’” she said, laughing.
Her menus follow the sales, with one non-negotiable: protein.
“Oh, they eat lettuce, and they eat bread, but they want protein,” she said of the lifeguards.
Not even back-to-back knee surgeries slowed her down; she was back with meals within weeks, to the shock of crews who assumed she’d be out for months.
This past spring, Polly learned from lifeguard sergeants that equipment gaps were leaving blind spots on the beach — and putting swimmers at serious risk. She didn’t wait.
“I heard somebody say, ‘People will die this summer’ because of not having the right equipment,” Polly said. “When I heard that, I said, ‘If you’re telling me people are going to die, we need to get these on the water by Memorial Day.’ I told them to send me a list of what you need.”
She delivered: a new beach rescue UTV and personal watercraft for San Diego Fire-Rescue Lifeguards, valued at around $40,000, and placed into service at La Jolla Shores.
“Ms. Polly is an extraordinary member of our community whose generosity, time and care have made a meaningful difference for San Diego Lifeguards,” said San Diego Fire-Rescue
Lifeguard Chief James Gartland.
“From facilitating the acquisition of critical equipment, including a new Utility Terrain Vehicle and Rescue Watercraft through the Fire-Rescue Foundation, to spending countless hours giving back to our team through nutritious meals, kindness and words of encouragement, Ms. Polly’s commitment to San Diego Lifeguards is nothing short of remarkable,” said Chief Gartland. “We are honored and deeply grateful for her support, and our beaches are safer because of her efforts.”
Polly rarely seeks recognition, insisting the real reward is the crew’s smiles and gratitude.
“Once you get started with the lifeguards, seeing what they do, it puts baking cakes and making chili in perspective,” she said. “There is nothing that matches saving lives.”
