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The Jack Helbig Memorial Foundation’s boat pull in Brunswick County, NC
The Jack Helbig Memorial Foundation did not wish to host a golf match. The group wished one thing that aligned with its mission.
- A Brunswick County household began a basis to honor their son who drowned in 2010.
- The Jack Helbig Memorial Foundation goals to stop drownings by means of training and consciousness.
- The nonprofit offers scholarships for swim classes and has established water security stations at native seashores.
- The basis’s final purpose is to supply water security applications to each scholar within the county.
In June 2010, Kelly and Justin Helbig lived by means of the worst second of their lives: their 4-year-old son Jack drowned.
At that point, the household rented a home on a lake in Boiling Spring Lakes. Kelly, Justin and their three kids loved spending time within the water.
“When the weather warmed up that spring, they started jumping off the dock to their dad, and they’d swim around, climb up the ladder and do it all over again,” Kelly recalled.
Jack had a number of swimming classes below his belt, and Kelly and Justin instructed the kids to at all times put on their life jackets and never to enter the water with out an grownup.
But on June 5, 2010, Jack did. He had spent the morning swimming within the lake together with his grandparents, and when everybody went to go become dry garments and have a snack, Jack slipped out and made it to the lake with out anybody figuring out. The occasion was devastating for the household.
“I always thought my vigilance would keep my children safe,” Kelly stated.
After the tragedy, Justin and Kelly knew they wished to do one thing to honor Jack and preserve his reminiscence alive, however they weren’t certain what that will seem like.
“We also had a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old at home and processing our grief and their grief and trying to heal and move forward as a family took up a lot of our time,” she stated.
In 2011, a go to to an aquatics facility at Garrett College in Maryland planted the seed that will develop into a company and a mission. Kelly and Justin toured the ability, which was much like the Dinah E. Gore Sports and Aquatics Complex at Brunswick Community College, and discovered a couple of program to show kindergarteners water security and swimming.
They left with a need to deliver an identical program to the youngsters of Brunswick County. In December 2012, they established the Jack Helbig Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed toward stopping drownings by means of training and consciousness.
The group started by bringing the “Josh the Baby Otter” e book and water security curriculum to college students in native faculties, and it established the Brunswick School of Fish, a partnership between the muse and Brunswick Community College. Through Brunswick School of Fish, the muse offers scholarships for swim classes, taught by BCC instructors on the BCC aquatics facility by swim instructors. Since School of Fish started, the muse has sponsored about 500 kids.
Last yr, the muse hosted a water security day at Brunswick Community College, they usually plan to do once more on May 15, 2026. The Jack Helbig Memorial Foundation has additionally labored with native seaside cities — Caswell Beach, Oak Island and Surf City — to ascertain water security stations, which embrace instructional signage with a QR code providing up-to-date seaside forecasts and a rescue can floatation system.
The group raises funds to assist all these efforts all year long and thru its fundamental fundraiser, Jack’s Boat Pull.
Kelly’s final purpose is to see a water security program and swimming classes supplied to each scholar within the county. So far, that hasn’t come to fruition as a result of the county solely has one public pool facility, and there’s not sufficient area. But she and the muse’s devoted board members and volunteers aren’t giving up. In addition to advocating for extra aquatics amenities, they’re dedicated to providing swim classes to college students all year long.
“We want to fill every spot that we can get—get every child in the pool learning skills that we can,” she stated.
Renee Spencer is the group engagement editor on the StarNews. Reach her at rspencer@@usatodayco.com.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/topsail/2025/12/28/brunswick-county-nc-nonprofit-has-made-drowning-prevention-its-mission/87396065007/
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