More Than 82,700 Community Touchpoints: Drowning Prevention Week Makes a Splash
One week. Thousands of connections. And a strong start toward making our community safer around water.
When the Winter Park Blue Dolfins Foundation launched our very first Drowning Prevention Week, July 18–25, our goal was simple: get our community talking about water safety and drowning prevention, and—even more importantly—give families practical tools they could use to help keep their family safer around water.
Over the week, we combined in-person events, free swim instruction, online education, social media challenges and community outreach, all built around one important message: Water Means Wait.
And our community showed up! Throughout Drowning Prevention Week, we recorded more than 82,782+ points of engagement across our events, website, social media, magazine, educational resources, and online activities.
Our website received 7,218 unique visitors during the campaign, as families came online to learn more about drowning prevention and the resources available to them. (This was a record for us!)
✅ Swim Lessons
To kick off the week, over 30 children and adults participated in our free community swim lesson at Cady Way Pool, taking an important step toward becoming safer and more confident in the water. Orlando Health was on deck passing out sunblock and water safety information.
✅ Olympian Alia Atkinson’s Inspiration
Over 60 people joined us in person to hear five-time Olympic swimmer and current world record holder Alia Atkinson share her story, offer advice to young swimmers, and talk about the importance of making swimming a universal life skill.
The event was held at the Center for Health and Well Being, thanks to the Winter Park Health Foundation and the support of Winter Park Chamber of Commerce.
✅ Water Safety at Home
114 people downloaded our free Waterproof Your Home Kit so far. It is designed to help families identify potential water hazards and create layers of protection around children. The campaign emphasized that preventing unexpected access to water—from barriers and alarms to active supervision—is an important part of drowning prevention.
Click the image below to download your copy.
✅ Emergency Preparedness
More than 640 people have watched our Facebook Live with Dr. TeShondra Abner on our emergency-response program, learning what to do when an emergency happens and why preparation, CPR knowledge and rescue skills matter.
✅ Learning to Float
17 people posted photos of floating like starfish, helping us demonstrate one of the simplest but most important water-survival skills: knowing how to roll onto your back, float and conserve energy.
✅ Promise of Supervision
More than 700 people saw our Water Watcher pledge cards, reinforcing the importance of having a designated adult whose only job is actively watching children around water.
✅ Social Media Campaign: Blowing Bubbles
Our 25 Bubbles Challenge got underway, using one of the very first skills children learn in swim lessons—blowing bubbles—to spread awareness while beginning to raise money to support the Foundation's work.
Special thanks to Debbie D. for this great video!
✅ Awareness Continues
The Foundation’s Cady Way Family Magazine, packed with information on health and fitness and water safety information, has had over 74,000 impressions. Click the image below to read it now.
✅ Community Focus
Because several of these numbers represent overlapping audiences, we don't consider 82,782 to be 82,782 different individuals. Instead, it represents more than 82,700+ opportunities to put water safety in front of someone, teach a lifesaving skill, start a conversation or inspire someone to take action.
And the actual reach was even greater, since not every conversation, share, challenge participant or person reached through the campaign can be counted.
The Foundation created Drowning Prevention Week as a community-wide initiative centered on awareness, education and the lifesaving value of learning to swim. From swim lessons and emergency preparedness to active supervision and learning to float, the week demonstrated that drowning prevention isn't one action—it's layers of protection working together.
More than 82,782 community touchpoints is a strong start… but it's only a start.
Our goal is to keep building on that momentum until every child in our community has the opportunity to learn to swim, every family understands how to make their home safer around water, and every adult understands the role they can play in preventing drowning.
Because making a dent in drowning doesn't happen through one organization, one event or one week.
It happens when an entire community decides that every child deserves to be safe around water.
If you are interested in supporting our efforts to bring water safety and drowning prevention programming to even more families here in Central Florida, click below.