Lavaca Area Moms hosts ISR graduation, drowning awareness banquet

The Lavaca Area Moms Inc. hosted its second annual Infant Swimming Resource graduation and drowning awareness banquet last Saturday at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Hallettsville.  
68 children ranging from eight months to five years old, graduated from their swim lessons. Families traveled from as far away as Austin and San Antonio.
“One of the main goals we have in ISR is to teach babies starting at six months old how to find their float if they happen to unfortunately fall in the water,” Lavaca Area Moms Founder and ISR Instructor Paula Cunningham said. 
“That is a life-saving skill that children more often than not become familiar with until they’re older in life. We teach the infants the very minimum basics of rolling over onto their back and finding their float.”
“The significance of the banquet was to give those 68 graduates and their families the recognition that they deserve. What they went through was a six to eight week long bootcamp. It’s a very rigorous training program. Each lesson is only ten minutes and it can be hard for families on a number of levels. 
It can be a financial strain because the lessons are more expensive than traditional swimming lessons. It’s also a massive time commitment. In addition to those things, it can be hard to watch your child go through the lessons in the beginning. 
The keynote speaker at this event was Amber Smith. Her husband, Granger Smith, was a touring musician, but has since stepped away to pursue ministry. Smith sadly lost her son, River, to drowning and she was speaking on the importance of swim safety.
“One thing I knew for sure about my life from when I was younger is that I wanted to be a mom,” Smith said. “Being a mom has brought me so much joy. I love my children with every ounce of myself. I was always the mom who was two seconds behind my kids. I thought I was doing everything right. What I didn’t know is that I had the number one killer of children ages one to four in my own backyard.”
“The house had a pool, and we immediately put up a four-sided iron fence with a lock to try to keep them safe. It was the first week of June in 2019 and I had just signed up our son River for swim lessons the following week.
However, on the evening of June 4, my husband was outside with the kids, and we had just finished dinner and River was already in his PJ’s. Somehow that evening, our little boy River made his way into the locked pool area and into the water without anyone seeing him or hearing him. 
One minute our son was laughing and playing and shooting his brother with the water gun and the next, my daughter was screaming, and I came running out to see my husband doing CPR with our little son.”
This was a horrific experience for Smith and her husband to endure.
“When you see your son lifeless on the floor, you don’t know if you’ll ever smile again or have joy again,” Smith said. 
“Nothing made sense. I’ve learned so much since that day. I’ve learned that drowning is quick and silent and that it happens 70% of the time when children are not supposed to be swimming. 
I learned that age three is too late to start swimming lessons. I’ve learned that one layer of protection isn’t enough and that you need multiple layers in place. This includes the one layer that so many people are missing and that is giving your child the skills they need to survive under water should they ever make it to the water without you. 
This awful tragedy happens most to loving and attentive parents. It leaves gaping wounds in their family and life. Ultimately, I learned through this agony the power of God’s goodness.”
As Smith witnessed the parents who gave their children swim lessons, she realized that this was the ultimate gift a parent can give. 
“Infant swimming resources gets a bad reputation sometimes because people think that it’s traumatizing to a child,” Smith said. “Traumatizing is seeing your husband doing CPR to your lifeless son. Traumatizing is having to tell your five-year-old and seven-year-old that their brother is never coming home. 
Yes, babies cry during lessons, and sometimes they’re cold and uncomfortable and they want their mommy or daddy. But as parents, we must do what’s right for their safety and I commend all the parents who are putting their children through lessons.”
Smith and her husband were gifted with another child after their son passed away. They put their new son, Maverick, through swim lessons at a very young age and Smith believes this was absolutely necessary for his protection.
Smith wrote a book called “Where the Dinosaurs Roar” and donated the book to all 68 of the graduates.
Also at the graduation, the Don G. Kaspar Foundation donated $3,500 to the Lavaca Area Moms. 
Cunningham is proud of all the graduates. 
“It’s such an overwhelming feeling to watch these graduates,” Cunningham said. “It was such an honor to get to see all of the kids finish. I know so many personal things about the families having spent this one-on-one time with them. 
It’s an amazing concept to even begin to fathom that each one of them, no matter their age or health issues, they still made it.”