SSF Creation

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Swim Safe forever began when the parents of Elliot Barbier shared their story of losing their son to drowning with a room full of swim instructors. His parent's passed out baby blankets embroidered with an image of Elliot holding a blankie. We left that night holding this baby blanket feeling a sense of urgency to do something more to prevent childhood drowning in Brevard County Florida. No parent should be left grieving saying "we didn't know."  And too many parent's do not know that drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children ages 1 -4, and parents do not know the many of the layers of protection to prevent drowning. 

We decided to find a method to provide scholarships for self rescue type swim lessons in Brevard County FL. But that was not enough, we needed to go one step further. We needed to  educate our community and become more involved.

Childhood drowning is a community epidemic, and needs to be solved as a community.  Since our first "Awareness Walk", we have been heavily involved in Brevard County.  We have since opened chapters in the Outer Banks North Carolina and Northwest Houston.   

In 2022, we made the decision to change our organizations bylaws, allowing us to provide survival swimming lesson scholarships around the United States.

We work with other nonprofits with similar missions nationally to prevent childhood drowning though education with the project "Parents Preventing Childhood Drowning."

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