Thank you to Arezow Doost and KXAN News, the The CW Austin for sharing our water safety messages as much as possible this summer. Please watch, share, and have a conversation about water safety with your kids, friends, and families. DROWNING IS PREVENTABLE.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 2019

URGENT–39 TEXAS CHILDREN HAVE ALREADY BEEN LOST TO FATAL DROWNINGS THIS YEAR – AT LEAST 5 IN CENTRAL TEXAS!

June 12, 2019 – Austin, Texas – It’s only the beginning of summer but Texas has already lost 39 children to fatal drownings this year- including 3 children in Travis County and 2 in Williamson County in the last month. Many more have survived non-fatal drowning incidents. Children across Texas have drowned in backyard pools, apartment pools, community pools, hotel pools, bathtubs, ponds, hot tubs, rivers, lakes, beaches and even buckets. Last year, 91 Texas children fatally drowned, the equivalent of 2 FULL SCHOOL BUSES of children. These drownings are fast, silent and preventable and we must do something NOW to stop drownings.

June 13th marks the 11th Anniversary of the drowning of 4 year old Austinite, Colin Holst in a life guarded pool. Colin’s Hope was formed in his honor with the simple mission to raise water safety awareness to prevent children from drowning. Colin’s Hope, a Central Texas-based nonprofit organization is a trusted water safety and drowning prevention resource locally, statewide and nationally.

Drowning is the number 1 cause of unintentional death for children under 5 and a leading cause of death for ages 1-14. However, drowning is preventable. Colin’s Hope challenges Central Texans to visit www.colinshope.org/quiz to take their online water safety quiz and become a Water Guardian for Texas children. Just as we teach our children not to touch a hot stove, or to wear seatbelts or look both ways before crossing the street- we MUST teach them to be safer around water. We must also equip parents and caregivers with the knowledge they need to keep their families safe around water all year round by promoting/sharing our resources.

Jeff Holst, Colin’s dad and Co-founder of Colin’s Hope states, “We now know that drowning is preventable. We chose to honor Colin’s life every day by helping prevent other families from going through what we did. No one should ever lose a child to something that is preventable. We want to remind families to please be safe around water. NO ONE is DROWNPROOF- regardless of your socioeconomic level, your race, your ethnicity, your age or even your swimming ability.”

Alissa Magrum, Executive Director of Colin’s Hope states, “This message is for everyone! We must talk about water safety with our children when they are very young. We must do simple things like assigning an undistracted adult to always watch children – even when we do not plan to be in or around water, learning to swim, WEARING U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets, installing multiple barriers around water and learning CPR. Let’s create a revolution of Water Guardians by having a conversation changing our behavior to be safer around water. We can prevent drowning incidents and save lives. Not One More child should drown.”

Colin’s Hope Contact
Alissa Magrum, Executive Director
(512) 294-3910
[email protected]

May is NATIONAL WATER SAFETY MONTH! So far this year, 17 Texas children have lost their lives to a fatal drowning, but DROWNING IS PREVENTABLE. To make a splash during National Water Safety Month, Colin’s Hope has been working tirelessly to highlight simple, but essential, drowning prevention behaviors. Take a look at what we have done so far and follow us @colinshope on Facebook and Instagram all month to learn what YOU can do to help your family be safer around water.

THE KELS GROUP PODCAST

LISTEN NOW: Executive Director Alissa Magrum sat down with Rick Kauffman of The Kels Group aka The Drowning Warriors during the National Drowning Prevention Alliance Conference to talk about water safety. Click the button below or listen in wherever you normally access streaming media.

TEXAS DECLARES MAY 7-14 “DROWNING PREVENTION AND AWARENESS WEEK”

Thank you to our partners Texas Drowning Prevention Alliance, Families United to Prevent Drowning, The LV Project, Bria’s House, Emma’s Project, Rory the Warrior, Inc., NIPC, Miss Tristan Foundation, Remembering Wyatt Dale Water Safety, and the courageous families who shared their stories to promote drowning prevention at the Texas State Capitol. Let’s say Not One More Drowning as we honor Texas Drowning Prevention and Awareness Week!

WATCH NOW: From KBTX Media – “Texas lawmakers declare ‘Drowning Prevention and Awareness Week’” Thank you Michael Hojnacki, Emma’s Dad and founder of Emma’s Project, for your courage to share your story. Colin’s Hope and Families United to Prevent Drowning stand beside you to say Not.One.More.Drowning.

WATER SAFETY SPOTLIGHT!

As we enter National Water Safety Month, we’d like to give a huge BEST DAY EVER shout out to several companies and agencies who are committing to sharing drowning prevention messages in their communities.

• Griffin Fire Rescue of Griffin, GA for distributing 2,000 Colin’s Hope Water Safety Information Cards to their community.
• Cen-Tex Family Services of Bastrop for distributing 500 Water Safety Information Cards to their community.
• Texas Parks & Wildlife Department for distributing 1,000 Water Safety Information Cards to park visitors.
• Desert Island Pool Services, LLC for not only distributing Water Safety Information Cards, but taking the Colin’s Hope Water Safety Quiz and viewing our online webinar to learn more!!

PARTNERSHIP WITH PEI OF DFPS

Colin’s Hope is partnering with the Prevention & Early Intervention (PEI) division of Texas Department of Family & Protective Services for National Water Safety Month! PEI will be distributing 15,000 Water Safety Information Cards this year through multiple agencies, as well as providing 2 webinars presented by Colin’s Hope to encourage their staff to share water safety with their families and clients. We’re so excited to be a part of this movement toward drowning prevention.

Kick off water safety month TODAY by taking and sharing our WATER SAFETY QUIZ (www.colinshope.org/quiz)! No one is drownproof but DROWNING IS PREVENTABLE!

Water safety and drowning prevention are important points of discussion across all age groups. That’s why Colin’s Hope encourages these conversations to begin at pediatric well child visits as early as possible.

Thank you to Dr. Ari Brown of 411 Pediatrics & After Hours Care and  Arezow Doost of KXAN News for supporting this cause and helping to get this message out.

Please watch and share, and ask your pediatrician to talk about water safety at all well child visits. While the message may change depending on the age of the child, these conversations can and will save lives.

KXAN NEWS: Non-profit Colin’s Hope aims to raise water safety awareness

The 2018 Colin’s Hope Water Safety Billboards have arrived!

From June 18th through July 15th Austin and surrounding areas will be blanketed with 15 billboards with various water safety messages encouraging people to take our water safety quiz.  During this time there will be over 1.3 million weekly impressions.

Colin’s Hope is overjoyed to announce that the 2nd Annual Best Day Ever Party raised over $200,000 to help us prevent drowning! Presented by Patriot Pool and Spa along with the Dubois Family on Saturday, April 14th, this event hosted 230+ guests and took place at the beautiful Villa Del Lago overlooking Lake Travis. Guests enjoyed fabulous food by Crave and Silver Whisk, a live auction by Cowboy Auctioneers and live music by Chandler and the Bings.

These funds will save lives. They will provide swim and water safety lessons to at-risk children. They will provide water safety education to parents and adult caregivers. Most importantly, they will expand our reach with evidence-based and proven programs that increase water safety knowledge and swimming skills of children, while creating safer behaviors around water. We are humbled by your remarkable and continued generosity. Together, we are furthering our vision of a world where children do not drown and making strides towards our bold goal of ending drowning completely in Central Texas.

Here’s what Hal Denbar, owner of Patriot Pool & Spa and one of the biggest Best Day Ever Party sponsors, had to say about the event:

“We are so grateful to have the opportunity to be associated with Colin’s Hope and the inspirational work that the Holst family, Alissa, and the rest of the Colin’s Hope crew are doing on a daily basis. As a company who regularly interacts with thousands of swimming pool owners who live in Austin and the surrounding suburbs, Colin’s Hope is inspiring us to better communicate to our friends and customers their message of water safety. Thank you all for sharing in the Colin’s Hope vision of a world in which no child drowns, and we can’t wait to see you again next year at the Best Day Ever Party.”

To see a video about the Colin’s Hope Preschool Swim Safety Program that was shared during the program, click here.

Thank you to our incredible event photographers Kristen Roedner of Faux-Toes and Kelsey Logan. 

Please visit www.colinshope.org to learn more about the mission of Colin’s Hope, and learn about upcoming events.

A Best Day Ever Thank You to all Sponsors, Board Members, Supporters and Volunteers!

Here at Colin’s Hope, we have been very busy with everything from hosting webinars, to educating folks on how to use our water safety cards and website as drowning prevention tools, to distributing water safety cards, to training preschool teachers to deliver our curriculum in classes, to supporting young athlete ambassadors who are swimming and raising finds for Colin’s Hope, to strategizing with other drowning prevention organizations to make an even bigger impact, to… (whew!)

We have been so busy in fact that Colin’s Hope is expanding and we have just posted a 3rd staff position  for a hire date of Aug 1! Go to Mission Capital’s job posting NOW to see what you can do to join our team.

Please share it on your social media channels as well as with anyone who might be interested. We hope to get a great pool of stellar applicants to choose from to help add even more mighty to our team. This is incredibly exciting to know that Colin’s Hope is in a place to add this essential infrastructure.

Thank you for your support and belief in us and in this work we are all doing. We just need to do more as Texas has already lost 40 children this year to fatal drownings, more than 5 in the last week.

Program Coordinator details: http://www.501community.org/jobs/item/13/7272

Thanks again and Have the Best Day Ever,
Alissa & Jessica & the Colin’s Hope Board of Directors

Sorry but all 2017 Schlitterbahn tickets are gone. Thank you for your support and please check back again next year!

Make YOUR ripple at Schlitterbahn this summer! For a donation of $30 to Colin’s Hope, you get a Schlitterbahn Waterparks – New Braunfels ticket (valued at $52.99+). Grab your swim team, friends, family, coworkers, or just yourself and help prevent drowning while having a Best Day Ever!

Tickets are valid through June 30, 2017. Once your donation is made, your tickets will be mailed and should arrive within 2-3 business days. Your trip can help us share our water safety messages across Texas and beyond! Act now, as we only have 150 tickets left!

Thank you Schlitterbahn for sharing our vision of a world where children do not drown!