Today, we’d like to introduce you to Kari Bahour. Kari and her team shared their story with us below:
Kari Bahour’s passion for drowning prevention can be traced back to her then 16 – month old son’s nonfatal drowning incident more than twenty years ago. Spurred into action, Kari underwent specialized training in the infant self-rescue swim methodology. In 2000, Kari launched her business, Watch Me Swim, teaching self-rescue swim lessons to infants and young children. In 2008, Kari underwent additional training to become a MASTER INSTRUCTOR which allows her to train and mentor other Instructors in the self-rescue methodology. To date, Kari has trained and developed more than 35 Instructors nationwide.
Fast forward to 2014 on Mother’s Day weekend, after learning about four children losing their precious lives to drowning in Tampa Bay, Kari wanted to do more to prevent childhood drownings and help the underprivileged sector have access to one-on-one, self-rescue swim lessons. Kari founded the non-profit, The Water Smart Tots Foundation, to do just that. The privately funded foundation has impacted thousands of lives through public speaking events on drowning prevention, preschool water safety education programs, supporting local families who have lost a child to drowning, as well as awarding thousands of dollars towards scholarships for high-quality, self-rescue swim lessons to children ages 1 – 5 years old in the Tampa Bay area.
All the while building and managing two businesses, Kari was independently raising three small children as a single mom. Today, this resilient mompreneur has built Watch Me Swim to be the fastest-growing survival swim school serving the Tampa Bay area as well as having instructors in Boston, Chicago, and Pennsylvania. To date, Watch Me Swim, LLC has equipped THOUSANDS of infants and young children with essential life-saving skills.
Since 2014, Water Smart Tots Foundation has privately raised over $300,000 to provide swim lesson scholarships for hundreds of families in the Tampa Bay area and has provided in-classroom preschool water safety education to thousands of children.
A highly sought-after speaker on drowning prevention, single parenting, and building a business, Kari’s accolades include PBS/WEDU’s Be More Mason Dixon Award for Volunteerism, the National Drowning Prevention Alliance Community LifeSaver Award, Bay News 9 Community Hero, and most recently Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Forever 55 Micro Grant Recipient. Kari also sits on several committees including the Florida Department of Children and Families Child Abuse and Death Review Committee (CADR).
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There are many obstacles and challenges that come with building a business and being an entrepreneur but the biggest challenge was doing it while being a young single mother of 3 small children and having no strong family support and for the majority of the years, Kari didn’t even receive child support to help offset any costs of raising children. Kari truly raised her children solo in every aspect.
In the early years of building her swim school, Kari would have to maintain 2 and 3 side jobs just to pay bills and make ends meet. With drowning being the single leading cause of death among children ages 1 – 4 years old and having her son survive what could have been a fatal situation, Kari passionately believed it was her calling to stay the course and prevent these tragedies from occurring.
When Kari started her nonprofit foundation 14 years later, she knew nothing about how to start a nonprofit nor has she ever served on a nonprofit committee. She began reading as many books as she could and self-learned along the way.
Despite all the odds stacked up against her and the fact that many businesses fail within their first 3 years especially nonprofits operated by all volunteers, Kari was determined to succeed and become a statistic of successful single parents who persevered. Twenty-three years later, Kari has done just that. Not only does she have two successful businesses that have proved longevity and success, but she raised 3 very successful children who are all college educated and is now also a grandmother to two grandbabies.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Kari’s survival swim school, Watch Me Swim, has grown to become the area’s largest swim school provider for self-rescue swim lessons serving thousands of children in Hillsborough County, Pasco and Polk County for more than 2 decades. To locate a high-quality survival swim instructor, readers can visit: www.watchmeswim.com.
Kari’s nonprofit foundation, Water Smart Tots, has impacted thousands of lives through public speaking events on drowning prevention, preschool water safety education programs, supporting local families who have lost a child to drowning, as well as awarding thousands of dollars towards scholarships for self-rescue swim lessons to children ages 1 – 5 years old in the Tampa Bay area whose families could otherwise not afford to pay.
To donate to such a worthy cause and help support the mission of ensuring not one more child drowns or to apply for a scholarship, readers can visit www.watersmarttots.org.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, Kari was a shy, introverted child whose parents were migrants from the Middle East. As a young child through their early teen years, Kari had a speech impediment that held her back from discovering her true potential and she became a victim of taunting by her peers and as a result, developed low self-esteem. Kari was married immediately after high-school and had her first child at 20 years old. By the time Kari was 26 years old, she was single and a welfare mom to 3 young toddlers. All odds were stacked against her and her children but Kari’s hidden passion to want more and want better for her life was stronger than any obstacle she faced. Persevering was a normal day-to-day routine for her for many years.
Contact Info:
- Website: watchmeswim.com, watersmarttots.org
- Instagram: @watch_me_swim and @water.smart.tots
- Facebook: @watch_me_swim and @water.smart.tots
- Linkedin: @KariBahour
