LifeWaters

LifeWaters was awarded grants from the Craig Neilsen Foundation, the VA Adaptive Sports Program and St. Louis Downtown Rotary Club, the Palmer Foundation, as well as the Yates Foundation. These grantors along with the generous donations given by LifeWaters' supporters allowed our program to triple the number of applicants we provided scuba training in the metropolitan area and expanded opportunities for discover scuba and snorkeling. LifeWaters was organized in the St. Louis Metro area, but our outreach has grown from an organization that primarily impacts the five-state region around Missouri as well as Arizona, Texas, Southern Florida, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin and are firming up relationships with a couple of training centers in Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana and we are working on a few other sections of the country as well. LifeWaters takes a large group to the Atlanta Aquarium twice a year, sponsored through Home Depot. We were fortunate in developing a relationship with Bass Pro Shops allowing LifeWaters' participants a dive in their new aquarium in Springfield. LifeWaters works to gives its "Team" opportunities at disabled friendly dive locations in the Caribbean, the Gulf and Florida. Since its inception in 2000, LifeWaters program participation builds each year.
Program applicants are entered into the "LifeWaters Team" club roster and given opportunities to participate and meet others with similar interests in water related activities.
In the United States, 34.2 million people, or 17.5%, have a functional limitation. LifeWaters delivers a simple message, to quote a paraplegic diver, "Don't give up and never give in". Our short term goals are teaching divers to scuba, and increasing the opportunities for new applicants through a larger supportive staff, the long term goals are getting clients involved and into activity based therapy, out of isolation immobility often brings.