In August we begin to say goodbye to summer (say it aint so!) and refocus priorities for the coming seasonal change. In August, you celebrated a big birthday with me. You also anchored in to form the new WaterStrong Red Cross CPR Instructor Cohort.

Nana, Shelby, Andy, Teresa-Marie, Denise, Habiba, Nargis, Samia, Marzia, Brooke, and Jazanna will join Naomi, Cassy, Chelsea, Tim and John as Certified Red Cross Instructors, qualified to deliver the Adult & Pediatric Basic First Aid / CPR / AED trainings to communities WaterStrong serves. WELCOME! And THANK YOU to Jeff State for so skillfully delivering the instructor cert training, and to Tatyana Kiselov for facilitating our training connections. WELCOME Nana & Shelby as the WaterStrong training coordinators who will lead the buildout of our new core safety trainings. 

THANK YOU to Women’s Foundation of Oregon and to Elevate Oregon for the generous grants to support this critical capacity building in our communities.

You returned to Northeast Community Center with our Afghan refugee ladies from Pacific Refugee Support Group, every water entry more confident and open. We have a few new budding dolphins and mermaids in the group and soon, a few of them will become certified Red Cross First Aid / CPR instructors. Also in July we hosted a partner tent at Cathedral Park Portland Bridge Swim, sharing unapologetic admiration for the swimmers who train so hard for the challenging 11-mile swim, and raising awareness for a cleaner Willamette River. At Broughton Beach on the Columbia River you distributed over 120 free lifejackets to families recreating on a Sunday afternoon, delighted for the little life savers that would be their ticket to getting in the water. With your help, Metro reached its goal of distributing over 4,000 lifejackets to Portland metro families this year. Great job!

July is significant for other reasons. July is National Drowning Prevention Month. In Oregon, July tragically bookended 21 drowning fatalities including celebrity chef Naomi Pomeroy whose paddleboard leash failed to release from a tree snag on the Willamette River and Vielman Mijail De La Cruz-Lopez who failed to surface after jumping off a fishing dock at Boat Ramp C at Hagg Lake. Every drowning death is preventable, and please know you are making a difference. WaterStrong took seed when my heart sank, learning of the Garcia-Ixtacua family 3 generations loss at Hagg Lake in 2014. We will be part of the solution, and you are making it happen one lifejacket, one lesson at a time.

A few days ago I needed a mountain lake, so I took my pup Lolita and a tent and drove to Waldo Lake for an introductory visit. So many of you have swum / camped there this summer. I was sad to have missed out on the group fun, so I ventured out there solo to try to catch up with your joyful tales of crystalline waters and invigorating hours-long swims. Arriving in the afternoon, I found a campsite in Loop D, set up my tent, and took off to explore the trail around the lake. Within a mile, I found an exquisite primitive campsite on the tip of an outlook with perfectly placed boulders, cedars and huckleberries. Helloooooo lovely campsite…..we must sleep here tonight. Lolita could barely keep pace with my sprint back to Loop D, hasty decamp, and hustle back to the point to re-camp in paradise. We arrived just in time for dinner and sunset. Full bellies, we turned in for the night. About 3 hours later Lolita’s nervous wet noise and big brown eyes startled me awake in the pitch dark. A flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder. A storm moved away. Then suddenly another one came crashing in, just a few seconds between flash and rumble. TIME TO GO. I rolled up the sleeping bag and dog bed, prayed my little solar lamp would work when my cell phone failed. The path was well marked and so we found Loop D and the car just as the initial torrents rained down, a massive thunderstorm entering the scene to thrill our bones for the rest of the night. Next morning Lolita and I trekked back to little paradise to find a completely drenched tent and gear, AND a perfectly placid and enticing lake. Have you ever slid into the water with your suit and cap on, only to take them off a few minutes later and delight in the water on your skin everywhere? It’s a magical feeling. The crystalline waters were so clear that I could look down at my legs and feet, watching goosebumps disappear and my muscles flexing in perfect patterns with each stroke. Back at Loop D, a friendly campsite neighbor Andy from upstate NY recounted a story of 3 years ago when he and his new wife witnessed a direct lightning strike to the campsite next to theirs, sparking a wildfire and campground evacuation.  Their trauma carried through to now; perhaps indeed a tremendous energy resides here at Waldo Lake. It was a short intro but all magic.