SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — Many advocates helped bring lifeguards back onto the busy Lake Michigan shoreline of South Beach in South Haven this summer, including a grassroots water safety non-profit that is now itself in need of “life support,” according to organizers.
This Labor Day, just as the greater South Haven community was commending the new team of guards for a successful summer season with zero drowning deaths and several lives saved, the non-profit Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project (GLSRP) announced on social media it may be closing.
GLSRP was created more than 15 years ago by co-founders David Benjamin and Bob Pratt, in an Illinois town about 30 minutes south of Chicago, called Homewood.
In a recent post on the organization’s social media, Benjamin wrote that GLSRP is in “critical condition” and needs “life support.”
Benjamin told News Channel 3 that unfortunately the passion project, which has been run largely out of pocket, is unsustainable.
“I’ve been drowning financially to advocate water safety for 15 years, and I just tell everybody I’m fine and I’m doing okay,” Benjamin said.
He began a fundraising campaign on social media and said the organization needs $10,000 by the end of August to keep operating. For long-term sustainability, according to Benjamin, GLSRP would need to find consistent funding through community events, sponsorships or foundations, he said.
Benjamin said he has been giving everything he’s had to the organization since its inception, a mission he said began after having a near drowning himself while surfing Lake Michigan in the winter of 2010.
“I really got shook from it and woke up that I didn’t know anything about water safety,” Benjamin said. “I just thought knowing how to swim meant you couldn’t drown.”
He came to learn that people who know how to swim actually drown at higher rates than non-swimmers, because they spend more time in and around the water, he said.
Since then, he has continued to learn and teach water safety in the Great Lakes region.
More than 1,300 water safety presentations have been given across seven of the eight Great Lakes states since 2010, led by Benjamin and Pratt, according to GLSRP.
“Oftentimes, if a school or fire department requesting training didn’t have any funding, Bob Pratt and myself would donate our time and travel expenses to perform the presentations [and] trainings,” Benjamin told News Channel 3.
The organization also trains lifeguards and first responders in open-water rescue, works with families of drowning victims, and tracks every documented Great Lakes drowning.
There have been an average of 88 deaths a year since 2010, GLSRP’s data shows.
As of Aug. 30, the group’s website tracker counted 58 drownings across the Great Lakes so far in 2026, 31 of them in Lake Michigan, with four more listed as critical, unknown or missing.
About one week later, according to the organization’s social media, as of Sept. 8, 2026, seven more people had drowned in the Great Lakes, four of which were in Lake Michigan.
In an interview with News Channel 3, Alissa Magrum, executive director of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA) described GLSRP as an invaluable advocate.
“They’re incredible icons in the water safety world, so I hope they’re able to continue doing this really, really important work,” said Magrum.
“There’s a lot of danger that people can protect themselves with if they have the education and the information,” she said, “which I think is what the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project does an incredible job at.”
People can help the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project by donating to its social media fundraiser, on its website, or by mailing checks directly to:
Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project
2406 Heather Rd.
Homewood, IL 60430
Financial support over the years has come primarily from throughout Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, Benjamin said. Those sources have included family members of drowning victims, organizers friends and family, individual donors on website or social media, the Matthew Kocher Foundation, the Valparaiso Kiwanis Club, the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Community Area Foundation, the ZAC Foundation, and additional company match foundations.
“Every year we have been struggling for funding, but this year, funding has been dramatically cut from previous years,” Benjamin said. “Possibly inflation, cost of living, groceries…”
Over the years, GLSRP has provided Lake Michigan water safety trainings and presentations in New Buffalo, Sawyer, Bridgman, St. Joseph/Benton Harbor, Van Buren State Park, South Haven, Holland, Grand Haven State Park, Pigeon Lake, Windsnest Park, West Olive, Spring Lake, Muskegon, Ludington State Park, Manistee, Frankfort, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Leland, Traverse City, Old Mission Bay, Petoskey, Alanson, and Pellston,” according to Benjamin.