Downers Grove, Illinois-based Diveheart celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The nonprofit provides adaptive scuba therapy to help people with disabilities.
Founded in 2001 by Jim Elliott and overseen by Diveheart Executive Director Tinamarie Hernandez, Diveheart provides adaptive scuba diving programs for children and adults to not only help with mobility issues but relieve chronic pain. Through these programs, participants develop confidence, independence and self-esteem, as well as other physical and psychological benefits, according to a media release from Diveheart.
“Diveheart has helped shape the future of scuba therapy for people, not just with disabilities, but all abilities, and it is an honor to be a leader in the adaptive dive community and partner with businesses and organizations around the world to further that mission.”
— Tinamarie Hernandez
Fundraising Campaign
As part of its 20th anniversary, Diveheart is launching a 20 for 20 fundraiser to continue to support its programs. The goal is to raise $20,000.
“One out of five people in the world have a disability, and millions of people around the world suffer from chronic pain. Millions more find relief in the water through aqua therapy. The nonprofit Diveheart takes that relief one step further through scuba therapy and will continue to do this with donations from the public and other partners.”
— Tinamarie Hernandez
Throughout the years, Diveheart continues to help facilitate cutting edge scuba therapy research with university medical centers around the country, and offers an innovative adaptive scuba training program for scuba instructors and dive buddies who want to learn to work with people with disabilities underwater on scuba.
Its efforts and programming have been recognized. Recently, Diveheart was a winner in
the 2020 Sharecare Awards in the category of Healthy Living for Diving Past Boundaries Sharecare in association with The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York Chapter.
A big 2021 goal, Elliott says in the release, is for Diveheart to get a gift of land so that it can build the world’s deepest warm water therapy pool to replicate some of the benefits of scuba therapy that it sees in open water environments.
“It is our hope with this new facility that we will revolutionize rehabilitation not just for people with disabilities but people of all abilities.”
— Jim Elliott
[Source(s): Diveheart, PRWeb]
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Diveheart Video Wins 2020 Sharecare Award
Diveheart Helps People of All Abilities to Dive Deep
