During April and May, the North Platte Noon Rotary Club will bring the Josh the Otter Water Safety and Literacy Project to the kindergarten classes of North Platte. This is North Platte Rotary’s 7th year participating in the water safety project. The project will reach the 308 kindergarten students in 11 elementary schools in North Platte, including all the North Platte Public Schools, McDaid Elementary, and Our Redeemer Lutheran School.  Josh will begin visiting the kindergarten classrooms on Monday, April 29, 2019. In seven years, the club will reach over 2,601 students.

“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.  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,” Misty Robertson, Chair of the Rotary Josh the Otter Committee.

Robertson continued, “Bringing Josh the Otter to kindergarten classes seemed like a great way to promote water safety in our community, in a way that would be fun and memorable for the kids.

“After this year’s program, which runs through mid-May, we will have reached over 2,601 kids in North Platte in these seven 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 nationally recognized for its partnership work with organizations such as Rotary International.

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 every day 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, Brazil, Virgin Island and Canada are 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 death 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 education 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 Otter a book written by Blake Collingsworth.

The book has now been translated into twelve languages and has been published in Spanish, Urdu, and Portuguese with the hopes to reach even more. The foundation and its partners have distributed nearly 250,000 books and have reached over one million children.  The program has been presented in classrooms, community centers, zoos, aquatic centers, 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)

Drowning is preventable. Let’s not make a tragedy necessary to alert people to consider water safety and awareness. www.joshuamemorial.org

Joshua Collingsworth Memorial Foundation is a qualified IRS 501 (c)(3) organization.