WATER SAFETY MONTH: A BRIEF HISTORY & HOPE FLOATS FOUNDATION’S DEDICATION TO SAVING LIVES
BY STEF BAKER HOPE FLOATS PARTNER LIAISON
Hope Floats Foundation (HFF), whose mission is to help save lives by providing swim lesson scholarships to children who otherwise would not be able to afford them, is a huge advocate on the national stage for water safety. Each year, HFF strongly promotes National Water Safety Month to help spread awareness about the importance of safe water practices in an effort to reduce accidental drowning statistics. In May, many schools and swim organizations celebrated swim story successes and promoted water safety measures during National Water Safety Month (NWSM). Although many are aware of, support and celebrate NWSF, its history is not well known. NWSM was born from National Water Safety Week, created in 2003 by The World Waterpark Association (WWA). In 2007, The National Recreation and Park Association, who had been celebrating National Aquatics Week in July, joined WWA. Together, they decided May was the better of the two months to create awareness, knowing it is when swimming and other water activities begin to increase across the United States.
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In 2009, The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals (now the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance) came aboard and added waterparks, public and backyard pools specifically to the initiative. In 2010 the American Red Cross completed the coalition. According to the American Red Cross website, NWSF was created “in response to the need for ongoing public education on safe water practices…,” including the importance of swim lessons. It has grown from a one-week long event to a month-long campaign to promote safety in and around all bodies of water, in order to help reduce the number of drowning accidents in the U.S. Interestingly, in order to create more awareness and a high level of credibility, one of the things that WWA coordinates (on behalf of the coalition) is Gubernatorial proclamations from all 50 governors’ offices citing May as National Water Safety Month. This level of support from state governments really helps to elevate the cause, bringing it into each community across the country. In 2020 many Governors’ offices were not issuing any proclamations because of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, 29 of the 50 states felt it was important to continue the momentum. This year all offices were again urged to participate; the final participation rate data was unavailable at time this article was written. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Data Brief #149 issued April 2014, “Unintentional Drowning Deaths Between 1999-2010” (when NWSM was started), drowning was responsible for more deaths among children ages 1-4 than any other cause except congenital anomalies (birth defects). Drowning fatalities were the secondleading cause of unintentional injury-related death behind motor vehicle crashes among children ages 1-14. Boys are at a slightly higher risk than girls. Additionally, this brief stated the fatal unintentional drowning rate for African Americans was significantly higher than that of whites across all ages and the disparity was widest among children 5-18 years old. Numbers showed that African American children ages 5-19 drown in
