Drowning knows no season and doesn’t discriminate. It is the leading cause of injury death for young children ages 1 to 4, and three children die every day as a result of drowning.
I am proud to say we work to change these odds though. Live Like Jake Foundation was created after a very personal tragedy. In 2013, our beautiful son, Jake, passed away just before his third birthday in a drowning accident. We were visiting family, and despite a house full of adults, somehow Jake slipped out in the dark while I was nursing our 12-week-old daughter. Within a few moments, he fell from the dock into the Intracoastal Waterway and could not be revived.
We were devastated.
We knew that we did not want his loss to be in vain. We wanted to turn our heartbreak into a way to raise awareness and to prevent childhood drownings in other families. We knew we could do this by sharing the importance of water safety and establishing multiple layers of drowning protection both at home and away. To date, we have provided 2,200 ISR self-rescue swim lesson scholarships, as well as emotional and financial assistance for families who have lost a child or have a child with critical care needs.
I am also excited to share that we are in the process of moving in to our first space and will house a pool for water safety and swimming lessons along with a number of other activities!
Working together, we can end this epidemic. We have our virtual Poker 4 Prevention coming up on October 22nd. The event will have a $50 buy-in (with optional re-buys and add on), a drawing and fabulous silent auction.
“We know life has changed in the last few months,” added Morrison. “We want to prevent other families from having even more devastating changes.”
For additional information about events, scholarships, or the Foundation, please visit www.livelikejake.com or call 561.441.7611. Donations may also be mailed directly to the foundation at 10311 Ironwood Road Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33420. Follow us on facebook.com/livelikejake and @livelikejake3939on Instagram.
About Keri Morrison and The Live Like Jake Foundation
Committed to honoring the life and joy of her son, Jake Roarke Morrison, Keri and her husband, Roarke, started a foundation to raise awareness for drowning prevention. They achieve this by providing ISR infant self-rescue swim lesson scholarships to those who cannot afford them and also financial assistance to families who have lost a child or have a child with critical care needs.
