Making a local impact: Family Fun and Fishing event Oct. 25

For over a decade, the Remembering Wyatt Dale Water Safety Awareness organization has worked to promote water safety and will continue those efforts with their Family Fun and Fishing event.

The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 at Firemen’s Park in Graham. The fishing tournament will be held from 10 a.m. to noon along the duck pond at the park.

The event will offer free life jackets for children, safety lessons, games, food, refreshments and activities. The fishing tournament will be open to all children 12 and under with limited poles and bait available for free.

Different organizations will be set up at the event providing various forms of safety instruction such as vehicle heat safety and bathtub safety. 

Also at the event will be booths with the Texas Department of Transportation, Graham Police Department, Graham Fire Department, Young County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and more.

The Remembering Wyatt Dale Water Safety Awareness organization seeks to spread the message of water safety and provide life jackets for all children.

On July 7, 2013, the Terasas family lost three-year-old Wyatt Dale Terasas to drowning at a public lake swim area. Since then, the family has worked to put life jackets on all children and teach water safety locally and around the state.

The organization has been able to provide life jackets to over 7,000 children through events like Family Fun and Fishing. In addition to life jackets, the organization also provides families with scholarships for swimming lessons across the country.

“We want to reach families and we want it to be a ministry to truly be able to reach families. We’re seeing Wyatt’s story being told over and over through these years. ...Now the kids are teaching the parents and reminding the parents,” Wyatt Dale co-founder Tracey Terasas said.

Terasas said that since the event began 12 years ago, a group of students that got those teaching as preschoolers are now graduating as seniors at Graham High School.

“They know who I am and they’ll come up and tell me, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing.’ ...They haven’t forgotten and they’ll share it with their families and that’s how it will continue. That’s how we are keeping families safe,” she said.

Last year, a total of 400 life jackets, fishing poles and bait were given away to children who participated in the event.

After the Family Fun and Fishing event was postponed in April due to flooding, families were provided another summer opportunity to receive a free fitted life jacket Saturday, June 21. 

The organization was able to give out 360 life jackets at the June event held at The Rock. 

Terasas said despite the event being postponed from April, she did not want to leave families without a life jacket in the summer.

Due to the summer event held, there are a limited number of jackets that will be available at the upcoming event. The organization is asking those who already have a jacket to bring them to the event so that families that need a life jacket can get one.

Gently used life jackets which are returned are put at life jacket loaner stations located at Lake Eddleman in Graham and on Possum Kingdom Lake.

For more information about the event, visit the Remembering Wyatt Dale Water Safety organization Facebook page or their website at rememberingwyattdale.org.