Jessica N. Box: Actively Living and Breathing her Purpose – to Save Lives
Top 10 Most Influential Business Leaders to Watch Out in 2021
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When she had her first daughter, Simone, she suddenly
realized that she couldn’t be there at every moment watching over her. These
days that rings even more true, now that she has three young daughters.
Becoming a mother was really the seed that grew into venturing on her own with
SoCal Survival Swimming. “Both my mom and grandma have pools and I rely on both
to help with childcare so it’s imperative that my children know how to swim. I
was familiar with this program because my aunt is an instructor but at the time
the closest survival swim instructor was 50 miles away. Still, we committed to
the program when Simone was a baby,” she says. Fast forward a couple of months
and she had packed up her family and temporarily relocated to Boulder, Colorado
— where she began and completed her training at the Infant Aquatics
headquarters. This is Jessica N. Box and her story!
Teaching a child how to swim is fulfills her purpose
Every day that she jumps into the pool to teach a child how
to swim, she feels actively living and breathing her purpose — to save
lives. That’s why she shares her greatest achievement is learning that this
program has done precisely that. One incident that comes to her mind involved a
2-year-old boy. “It was Sunday morning and Andrew was at his grandparent’s
house while his dad helped them fix some pool equipment. While his dad was
around the corner of the house, Andrew was playing with a dump truck, trying to
make mud to add to the back of the toy. When he reached into the pool the
weight of the truck caused him to fall in headfirst. Nobody heard a sound —
there wasn’t a splash, a scream or anything. Later, his dad and grandparents
found Andrew floating peacefully in the pool. He had used the swim-float-swim
method I teach and was completely unharmed,” she happily recalls.
Word of mouth helping her grow business
At SoCal Survival Swimming, Jessica offers two different
programs: infant survival float and swim-float-swim for children of walking age
and older. She also offers group classes and has an amazing instructor,
Adrienne, who teaches advanced strokes. Adrienne swam on the San Diego State
University swim team. Babies as young as six months can begin the class. The
survival swim classes are 10-minutes long, five days a week for six weeks. At
the end of the six weeks, the child must pass the survival swim test, which
involves jumping into the pool fully clothed. Jessica believes living in a
small town-type environment is great for her business because she really can
rely on word of mouth. The majority of her students are referrals from other
parents who were happy with the success of her program.
Talking about obstacles, Jessica shares, “When mom and dad
are discharged from the hospital with their new baby, they take home documents
detailing all the safety necessities of parenting a young child. Guess how much
of it is dedicated to water safety? One line — even though drowning is the
number one cause of death among children between the ages of 1 to 4, according
to the CDC. That’s one of the main obstacles I’m working to hurdle — adding
drowning prevention to the childhood safety narrative. A major part of that is
helping the public understand the value of survival swim — the difference
between “quality swim lessons,” and regular swim lessons — and helping ensure
more families have access to this life-saving method.”
“No child should die from drowning”
When asked if she has achieved all that she desired, Jessica
answers, “No way! That’s why I started my foundation One Baby at a Time. I
founded this nonprofit with Dr. Jamie Friedman, our advocate with the American
Academy of Pediatrics and Dan Caulfield, founder of the Helmets to Hardhats
nonprofit.” The goal of One Baby at a Time is to serve as a drowning prevention
educational resource, providing advice to parents and caregivers, access to
local instructors, a rating system for instructors and a place for client
reviews. Jessica recently partnered with the California Department of
Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to pioneer the message that “no child
should die from drowning.” “This unprecedented collaboration will cement our
message regarding survival swimming. This invaluable partnership provides us
with direct access, communication and support to at least 21,000 firefighters
and their families. In addition, to help more parents provide their children
with quality swim lessons regardless of their financial situation we now offer
a scholarship. Parents can visit our website and fill out the application.”
Victories, achievements and eyeing beyond horizon
Jessica recently had a huge victory. Talking about it, she
says, “We were shut down at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the number
of childhood drownings quickly shot up. Florida saw one of the largest spikes
with a 70% increase compared to last year. I knew we needed to get back into
the water, so our foundation wrote letters to health officials and legislators
asking for their support. We then forwarded these letters to Gov. Gavin
Newsom.” Thankfully, they were declared essential. “We were the first swim
program in the United States to receive the “essential business” stamp of
approval. This victory just shows how essential we really are and that we need
to bend the ear of legislators to make this ring loud.” That’s why she says she
will continue to use the successful model of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
(MADD) to become the so-called “MADD” of drowning prevention. This organization
singlehandedly changed the narrative regarding drinking and driving by turning
to legislators to enact strict laws. One Baby at a Time plans to use similar
methods to achieve successes parallel to MADD. By joining forces with
organizations such as Cal Fire and the AAP, “we will be able to champion our
cause at the legislative level and reduce the number of childhood drownings,”
Jessica concludes.