News Release North Platte Noon Rotary
NORTH PLATTE, Neb.-After a hiatus of two years, the North Platte Noon Rotary Club will bring the Josh the Otter Water Safety and Literacy Project to the kindergarten classes of North Platte.
Josh and Rotarian readers will visit classrooms the first week of May. This is North Platte Rotary’s 6th year joining in the water safety project.
The project will reach the 279 kindergarten students in 11 elementary schools in North Platte, including all the North Platte Public Schools, McDaid Elementary, and Our Redeemer Lutheran School. In eight years, the club will reach nearly 3500 students. The club will also provide 554 books to the two years we missed because of COVID. This year 1st and 2nd graders will receive a copy of the Josh the Otter Water Safety book.
“Our Noon Rotary Club first learned about Josh the Otter from our friend Trudy Merritt with the North Platte Rec Center when she spoke at one of our meetings," said Misty Robertson, Chair of the Rotary Josh the Otter Committee."Trudy shared what the Rec Center was doing with the “Little Otters” water training program and provided information about the Josh the Otter reading program that many Rotary clubs have taken on as a project.”
“Bringing Josh the Otter to kindergarten classes is a great way to promote water safety in our community, in a way that would be fun and memorable for the kids," said
“After this year’s program, which runs through the first week of May, we will have reached over 2,700 kids in North Platte in these 6 years since Noon Rotary started the project”
The North Platte Noon Rotary Club partners with the drowning prevention nonprofit that created the program, the Joshua Collingsworth Memorial Foundation (JCMF). JCMF has recently been nationally recognized for their partnership work with organizations such as Rotary International. In March, JCMF received the 2012 Community Lifesaving Award from the National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA) and the National Water Safety Congress 2012 Regional Award for their ongoing efforts to promote water safety awareness throughout the United States.
From the coast of eastern Florida to the shores of Hawaii, the message of Josh the Otter is spreading quickly! Rotarians across the country and even the world are hearing the life-saving message and are excited at the positive changes that a partnership between Josh the Otter and Rotary International can bring to communities everywhere. Since 2010, Rotarians have distributed thousands of Josh the Baby Otter books and everyday more clubs are starting their own Josh the Otter literacy and water safety projects. Currently, over 20 U.S. states and the country of Pakistan have Rotarians pursuing the Josh the Otter project within their own clubs. With drowning a leading cause of unintentional death for children all over the world, Rotarians are helping to save thousands of lives!
Joshua
Collingsworth Memorial Foundation, Lincoln, Nebraska
Parents Blake and Kathy Collingsworth honor the memory of their two-year-old
son Joshua, who died on June 4, 2008 after falling into the family pool three
days earlier. They believed they had every safety precaution in place, but the
reality is that a drowning can occur in mere moments. After losing Joshua, they
felt compelled to help reduce the dramatic numbers of deaths by drowning that
occur in our country and around the world. The Joshua Collingsworth Memorial
Foundation was created in July of 2008 to serve as a catalyst to strengthen
water safety awareness and create an early childhood educational program. Their
goal is to empower children to be safe in and around ALL bodies of water to
prevent similar tragedies. The Josh the Otter Water Safety and Awareness
Project is dedicated to teaching young children about water safety through the
use of Josh the Baby Otter a book written by Blake, which was recently
translated into Spanish. The foundation and its partners have distributed
nearly 40,000 books. The program has been presented in classrooms, community
centers, zoos, pools, and childcare facilities around the world.
1.2 Million people around the world die by drowning every year, that is more than two persons per minute. (International Life Saving Federation, 2010)
Drowning is preventable. Let's not make a tragedy necessary to alert people to consider water safety and awareness. www.joshuamemorial.com
Joshua Collingsworth Memorial Foundation is a qualified IRS 501 (c)(3) organization.
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