Our Mission
LifeBrite Active was founded to provide a consistent source of highly-visible swimwear and apparel regardless of trends or seasonal availability. We're focused entirely on increased visibility for safety purposes. The mission is rather simple: If you can't see someone, you can't save them, so dress them BRITE to stay in sight. Our social media accounts provide example after example of how dressing your loved ones in highly-visible swimwear and clothing aids in supervision and increases safety, while our blog posts educate even further on this point.
When researching which activities seemed to overlook this function most, we kept circling back to swimming, more specifically, swimmer safety. Every year in the United States there are an estimated: 3,960 fatal unintentional drownings. If you include boating-related drowning—that is an average of 11 drowning deaths per day. Accidental drowning is a leading cause of death for children under the age of 5, in fact, more children ages 1–4 die from drowning in America than any other cause of death apart from birth defects. For children ages 1–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes. When a child or adult swimmer is missing, every second counts and visibility is critical.
Studies have shown that colors such as white, blue, black, and other muted colors are hard to distinguish underwater and can often be overlooked completely, or mistaken for a shadow, a rock, or even sunken foliage. On the other hand, neon colors such as fluorescent green, yellow, pink, and orange are the most distinguishable. For this reason, we’ve made it our goal to use our platform to spread awareness of this fact, and encourage everyone to #livelifebrite by choosing a highly visible, solid color suit in lieu of something more muted. Additionally, we give back to our community by way of scholarships toward survival swimming courses, and advocacy for swim safety in an effort to reduce accidental drownings. A portion of the profits from our LifeBrite Active sales go towards this mission.
Why Swim Lessons?
LifeBrite Active is a Florida-based company. Co-founders Jessica and Brittany have grown up swimming at the local aquatic centers, surfing the surrounding beaches, boating the lakes and springs, and lobstering and scalloping in our intercoastal waterways. Raising our children in Central Florida has given us a heightened sense of responsibility in and around water, and we actively pursue ways to keep our children safe. The statistics for unintentional drownings in the state of Florida are staggering. Collectively throughout 2017-2019, Florida ranked highest in the nation for pediatric drownings age 1-4. Florida ranked 4th for adults age 18+, and 5th in the country for drownings age 0-17. And with first responder friends and family members' accounts of an undeniable uptick in drownings within the county that we live in, we felt it was time to take action.
If drowning prevention requires a multi-layered approach including a combination of supervision, barriers, and emergency preparedness, how could a couple of "helicopter moms" contribute to this epidemic we’ve been witnessing? We believe our contribution comes in the form of education. Adult supervision is made easier by dressing children in brightly colored and easily distinguished clothing, this is an aspect of swim safety that has been overlooked for far too long, and one we hope to bring awareness to through our brand. Our approach to overall water safety education is encouraged through our social media efforts and advocacy for local aquatic safety programs. This is why we've chosen to donate a percentage of each sale to a charity that provides scholarships for swim lessons. Each sale will get us one step closer to the ultimate goal of putting an end to unintentional drownings.
