SplashForward

08/25/2026

Had a fabulous time building community and supporting local Black businesses at the inaugural 🌟Golden Hour Unboxed at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens🌳.

Many golden moments unfolded. We can’t wait to be there next year and support this event as it grows.

Hats off to our Board member Katoya Palmer of ToyBox Consulting for launching her vision for this event and to Charmaine Madden for being on point to make it happen. Your organization, messages, and attention to detail were noticed.

Next year we want to see more representation from the City of Bellevue, the Chamber, and all our local business community. We need to do more than fund events like this. It is about building relationships and creating pathways.
City of Bellevue
Bellevue Chamber Of Commerce

08/20/2026

THIS SUNDAY, 💦SPLASHForward is supporting and tabling at ✨Golden Hour Unboxed — a free celebration 🎉 of Black entrepreneurship at 🌳Bellevue Botanical Garden, Sunday, August 23. Doors open at 5:30pm - golden hour to twilight. This event is put on by our amazing Board member Katoya Palmer's ToyBox Consulting and Management and funded through a City of Bellevue Cross Cultural Center Without Walls grant.

It's free, it's all ages, and it ends in a twilight social. Come early and stroll the gardens, then shop, hear the storytelling and entrepreneur pitches, say hi, and stay for the sunset.

👉RSVP FREE at goldenhourunboxed.com.

08/15/2026

Join our SPLASHForward💙💦 Swim Across America - Seattle 🏊🏊‍♂️🇺🇸 Team before the registration fee increases on Monday! We’re swimming once again to join our local community in raising funds to help fight cancer. All funds go to Fred Hutch Cancer Center to fund early stage cancer research and immunotherapy clinical trials.

💦Sat Sept 12th
💦Sunset Beach at Lake Sammamish State Park
💦Swim Distances - .5mi, 1mi, 2mi or swim virtually (any option works!)

👉Sign up on our SPLASHForward Team Page - https://bit.ly/SAATeamSPLASHFORWARD

👉Learn more about the event - https://bit.ly/SAASeattle

08/01/2026

We so admire and appreciate💙💦 all lifeguards🛟🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️ from our newest to our most seasoned and even those who have retired! We believe lifeguards are the linchpin to enabling our aquatic facilities to provide essential aquatic programs, lifesaving skills, and safe places to recreate together. 🙏Thank you to all lifeguards for choosing to help keep others safe, work as a team, and continue to hone your skills so that we can enjoy our lifeguarded pools, beaches, lakes, and waterfronts. We are especially proud of all of the students we have supported through our program and their passion and commitment to water safety.

👉Next time you are at the water, 🙏thank the lifeguards on duty and let them know how much you appreciate their vigilance in keeping you and others safe around water, preventing drowning and mishaps while you enjoy the water. 💙💦

Big milestone alert🚨! As of last weekend, we have supported 501 students across 45 schools in Bellevue, the Greater Eastside, Seattle, and King County to receive their lifeguard certification through our HS Lifeguard Training Program since we started it in 2021! If you counted the students on our waitlist, attempted portions of the lifeguard class, attended our workshops, or attended our skill development classes who are not yet certified or 15yrs old, then we have supported over 620 students.

See the comments for how you can help us reach our goals and continue providing lifeguards to our local waters at your pools, beaches, and lakes.

07/31/2026

You may have seen this heroic lifesaving rescue on your social feeds. This 16yr old lifeguard🛟🏊‍♂️ and his team who guard CA coast beaches, are amazing first responders and lifesavers.💙💦 They are doing what they are trained to do. As this 16yr old said...what they do every day.

Hopefully, the attention that this lifesaving moment gets will help lifeguards be recognized as first responders. We also hope it helps our local businesses, individuals, and foundations invest as sponsors in our HS Lifeguard Training Program. Our program, for the first time in six years, is currently on hold due to maxing out our 2026 available sponsor funding. We are actively applying to grants and soliciting funders so that we can continue to provide FREE training, skill development, mentorship, and job resources to high school students in our region.

If you know of someone or an organization that might be interested in becoming a sponsor, please reach out - [email protected]

NBC News

Ryder Williams, the 16-year-old lifeguard credited with saving a boy off California’s Santa Cruz coast is speaking out for the first time. Williams says he was at the waterline when he saw a child lose his footing. The father of the boy rescued tells NBC News he is eternally grateful to Williams. ...

07/25/2026

Today is 🛟National Drowning Prevention Day🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️! It takes all of us to UNITE to turn the tide.💙💦

Drowning is the…
💦4th leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 4
💦3rd leading cause of death for children aged 5 – 14

💦24% of all drowning deaths are children under the age of 5
💦Drowning claims more than 300,000 lives every year
💦Locally, this summer we have witnessed drowning deaths in our lakes and rivers of youth, teens, and young adults.

🛟Drowning is preventable.

👉We are working in partnership with our community to turn the tide by expanding access to aquatics.
🙏Please support our efforts so that together we can UNITE to turn the tide!💙💦

World Health Organization (WHO)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

07/22/2026

Do you live, work, or play in Bellevue? Add your voice to the City's survey to share your experience and input on life in Bellevue. We'd like to see our aquatics community and those who support investment in a new public aquatic center fill out this survey. 💙💦 An aquatic center is a safe, inclusive, shared space...a Third Place...that builds community connection and is a source of pride.

🙏Please fill it out and share it with your friends!

👉✍SURVEY - https://bit.ly/CityOfBellevueSurvey2026
👉Survey runs through August 10th

07/16/2026

Last night Seattle Parks and Recreation held its first of two public meetings on the $88.5M Green Lake Community Center, 💦Evans Pool, and play area redevelopment project. If you attended hoping that your voice for expanded pool capacity was heard after the last public engagement, you were pretty disappointed. A constrained site felt even more constrained with the updated schematic plan that switched the location of the pool and recreation center. The previously proposed new pool building is now the proposed new community center and the problematic existing landmark status building and Evans pool is the proposed location for the pool. The existing 1955 6 lane lap pool would be the location for a renovated new 6 lane lap pool…no increase in capacity. The previously proposed warm water teaching and activity pool has two possible locations within the existing green lake building footprint but both options require additional funding. We asked how much and we’re told 10% of the total project cost, $8.85M.

The disappointment was clearly expressed by those who attended hoping for much needed expanded capacity and programming for lap swimming, high school swim teams, recreation, and expanded hours.

Council member Dan Strauss was in attendance and listening to constituents and local pool advocates. He knows Green lake is underserved and is a site with many complexities. He is focused on the future and where a new aquatic facility could be built. He has his sights set on Magnuson park, but there are no plans to develop that site and the next rev of the Seattle Metropolitan Parks District levy is two years out.

See comments for more…