Kids Don't Float

Promoting safety on the water, the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Kids Don’t Float Program provides free access to personal flotation devices (PFDs) for infants, children, and youth at over one hundred PFD Loaner Stations located at docks, marinas and beaches along B.C.’s coast. 

The Kids Don’t Float program is a CCGA-P SAR prevention initiative that was successfully piloted in Canada in the summer of 2002 and has been expanding ever since. Initially, this program was developed in 1996 by a group in Homer, Alaska, as a response to Alaska’s high rate of drowning. Today, there are more than 110 Kids Don’t Float lifejacket loaner stations at marinas, beaches and docks on the coast of BC and in the Shuswap.

The KDF loaner program is easy to use. Sites are established at harbours and public boat access areas and have pegs for loaner PFDs. Boaters and swimmers may borrow appropriately sized life jackets for children with them, free of charge. Upon completion of marine activity, boaters/swimmers return their lifejackets to the display/storage board.