Why We Do This Work
Roxie Mirabelle Forbes died under shocking, appalling circumstances. She drowned in a small swimming pool at Summerkids Camp in Altadena, CA under the supervision of fake lifeguards.
According to court filings, trial transcripts, exhibits and testimony, Summerkids camp owners hired Andrew Cervantes who fraudulently certified Summerkids counselors as lifeguards. Cervantes admitted he had fraudulently certified himself as Red Cross instructor. After seven years, Summerkids owners-operators admitted at trial that they were “ultimately responsible.”
Publicly available documents and admissions from former counselors and a former lifeguard instructor show that Summerkids camp owners manifested fraudulent lifeguard certification since at least 2006. Camp owners admitted they knew that The camp is co-owned by two older parents and their 50-something adult children. These acts enabled the camp owners to pocket an extra $7 thousand dollars each year, based on an abundance of documents, including invoices.
According to the documents and testimony, the camp director/co-owner refusedto call Roxie’s parents as Roxie lay dead on her pool deck. Instead, she admitted that she holed up in her office and called her own parents.
The documents and testimony show that she also immediately shut out Roxie’s parents, Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas (Elena died in 2022), from all communications, thereby preventing them from getting answers they desperately sought. The camp director admitted this at trial. She also admitted that she refused to return their tuition check until Forbes hired an attorney to demand a refund months later.
The director and her family prevented parents from picking up their traumatized children after Roxie drowned, according to an email they submitted to Forbes. The family kept the camp open the entire day after Roxie drowned in the morning. The director’s explanations about Roxie’s drowning included numerous lies, according to the same documents and admissions and interviews with other camp parents.
Therefore, this foundation and this website was established for these reasons:
To honor Roxie by preventing other children from being harmed in camps or aquatics environments
To hold parties accountable for harming children
To help aggrieved families garner the justice they deserve
To educate and advocate for long overdue changes in the largely unregulated summer camp industry
READ MORE HERE →
(All applicable court documents, exhibits and trial transcript excerpts are available upon request.)
What We Do
WE ARE THE ONLY CAMP SAFETY FOUNDATION IN AMERICA. This may be hard to believe, considering roughly 30,000 day and resident (overnight) camps represent a $26 billion industry serving 25 million children and 1.5 million camp employees. Camps are beloved. They can provide opportunities for social, emotional, cultural and physical growth. However, a stunning lack of safety regulations fails to prevent sexual abuse, emotional abuse, disease, injuries and deaths from enduring at camps. We work with vital stakeholders to maximize benefit and minimize harm.
More on Safety for Children’s Camps →
The U.S. has roughly 10 million private and public pools and 100,000 miles of exterior and interior open water shoreline. Childhood drowning continues to be a national health and safety crisis that does not receive the attention it so desperately deserves. Legislation is sorely lacking. Water safety education is rarely taught in school health programs. And, nearly 90% of young children drown in pools, bathtubs and even buckets of water under the supervision of nearby adults.
More on Childhood Drowning Prevention →
Who Roxie Was
CHILDREN DESERVE NOTHING BUT THE BEST HEALTH AND SAFETY PROTECTIONS.
Roxie will be 6 1/2 forever.
Learning to ride
Always dancing.
Final Video
Roxie adored the magic of the Pacific
Where You Have Seen Us
What the Latest Data Tells Us
→ Drowning increased by 28% among children ages 1–4 in 2022 compared to 2019.
→ Drowning increased 28% among Black people in 2021 compared to 2019.
→ Over half (55%) of U.S. adults have never taken a swimming lesson.
→ Drowning remains the number one cause of death for children ages 1–4.
→ We must immediately being looking at this national safety epidemic through an entirely new lens.
And that’s exactly what we are going to do.
