Water safety event called successful

A tearful Tiffany Young told gathered parents and kids how quickly she lost her two-year-old son Matthew Woods last year at a relative's pool in Chapel Hill during Saturday's Water Safety Weekend at the Shelbyville Recreation Center, which was held in memory of Matthew.
(T-G Photo by Brian Mosely) [Order this photo]

The event was held in memory of Matthew Woods, who drowned last year at age 2, and was sponsored by the Shelbyville Fire Department, the Shelbyville Parks and Recreation Center, and United Way of Bedford County.

Bill Woods, father of Matthew Woods, works as a firefighter at the Shelbyville Fire Department and also helped to plan the event. Tiffany Young, Matthew's mother, spoke at the event.

Recreation Center personnel split up the parents and children for a while in order to give the parents water safety instruction and to let the children play water safety games in the pool.

"We had children from 8 months of age to 14 years old, which was great," said Dawn Holley, executive director of the Bedford County United Way. "We believe that the event was very successful for the amount of time we had to put it together.

"Around 50 children were at the event and about 75 people total. We were very excited about the first year's turnout and also some of the things that came out of this weekend," she said.

For example, Denise Burdette, Shelbyville resident, read the preview article on the water safety weekend and shared it with her cousin, Monica Trice, from Atlanta.

"Monica also thought this was a very special story. Her son, Jaleel Trice, is a lifeguard in Atlanta and when his mother told him about the story, he decided to quickly plan a similar event for the pool he works at," Burdette said.

"The pool Jaleel works at hosts a Mothers Day Out program on Saturdays. Jaleel talked some of his friends into helping to teach these children a few water safety techniques. The lifeguards also asked the parents to stay at the pool in order to educate themselves about the potential danger of water and hopefully implement safety into their everyday routines. I thought it was great that these college students believed that water safety is such an important thing to educate children about that they took extra time to organize the event."

Burdette and her son attended the Water Safety Weekend event at the Shelbyville Recreation Center on Saturday. She was very excited when her son came up to her after one of the safety demonstrations and said, "I didn't know how to do that!"

Burdette said that both she and her son learned a lot from this event.

"I would highly recommend this program to everyone. It really hit home as a parent."

The Recreation Center split up the parents and children for a while in order to give the parents water safety instruction and to let the children play games in the pool.

"We had children from 8 months of age to 14 years old, which was great," said Holley. "We believe that the event was very successful for the amount of time we had to put it together."

The committee plans to make this an annual event and hopes that the event will grow.

"We think that everyone learned a lot from this safety event and we hope that parents will take this knowledge and apply it to their everyday routines," Holley said.