New Florida Law Provides Free Swim Lessons For Children

This is great news for all parents! If you've had to pay for swim lessons before you know how expensive they can be. Living in the state of Florida and surrounded by water it's important that everyone learns how to swim at a young age. That's just another reason why Florida Governor DeSantis just signed a new bill that will help provide subsidized swimming lessons through vouchers.

According to FOX13, the new Swimming Lesson Voucher Program will roll out July 1. It's happening all within the Department of Health.  "The program will offer vouchers to families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level with children ages four or under." For example, that would be $60,000 for a family of four. If you want to be eligible, families will need to have one or more children 4-years-old or younger. This is such good news that can save many lives.

Sadly, Florida is the state with the most unintentional drowning deaths of children. According to the Department of Children and Families, kids that drowned are between the age of 1 and 4-years-old for years. Just this year alone in 2024, 18 children have died from drowning in Florida. It's important to educate yourself and your kids how to swim so you can avoid one of these tragedies. Most of these deaths were between the ages of 1 and 3 years old. Fox13 mentioned, "This bill was personal for Senator Travis Hutson, who crafted the legislation. He had a young nephew who accidentally fell into a pool but survived because he knew how to float from taking swim lessons." He said he was fortunate enough to afford lessons for his family but not everyone can be as fortunate. DeSantis wants to help lower-income families to have access to this resource to help potentially save lives.

If there's one thing we love it's a good movie! Whether you're from the area or new to the area, there have been several famous movies filmed in Tampa Bay. With our warm weather and beautiful beaches, it's easy to pick a perfect time to film. Many of these movies you've seen before or maybe there's one of two you need to check out.

Filming a movie can be extremely time-consuming. A lot of movie companies like to shoot in Florida because of the many incentive programs. Most of the counties in the state don't over-tax these movie companies which in turn helps with potential tourism. In general, it takes around 3-4 months to shoot a normal movie. We know there are going to be some movies missing from this list like Cop and a Half, Smokey and the Bandit 2, The Infiltrator, and a few others.

Although traveling down to the state can be an undertaking for a film crew, Tampa Bay offers so many different advantages. We looked up several movies on IMDB and there were a ton of them that we didn't know were shot in the Bay area, then ranked them based on personal opinions and their Rotten Tomato score.

If you didn’t know, Tampa ranks #2 on the list of Florida family vacations! Out of 400 towns in Florida a recent study looked at hotel prices, number of restaurants, and amusement parks. Florida is undeniably one of the best vacation destinations in the entire world.

There are tons of reasons why Florida continues to attract millions of visitors every year. From its stunning beaches, vibrant cities, and diverse wildlife there’s always something fun to do. They have thrilling theme parks and offer a wide range of attractions for anyone’s travel interests and preferences.

Florida features vibrant cities with a diverse cultural scene all over the place. Miami is mainly known for its lively nightlife but still offers a lot of family-friendly things to do. Tampa offers the Tampa Museum of Art and Florida Aquarium as fun places for the family to enjoy. Don’t forget about their energetic sports scene with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.

Florida is known for it's Spring Break life style! It's definitely a hot spot for Spring Breakers every year and this movie was shot in St.Petersburg in the James Franco movie, ‘Spring Breakers’. In the trailer you can also see the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Coral Reef Motel, located between RumFish Beach Resort and TradeWinds Island Grand, was also displayed in the movie. It has many famous actors featured like Selena Gomez and Vanessa Higgins.

Channing Tatum’s Magic Mike showcases Tampa Bay and it's beautiful beach scenery. Channing who went to school in Tampa showed off the area in his successful movie as well as The Amphitheatre at Ybor City. The film is a loose portrayal of Tatum’s real life experience of being a male stripper. His character Chan Crawford worked in Tampa before making it big in Hollywood.

Did you know that Honeymoon Island was portrayed as Puerto Rico in the 2004 movie The Punisher? This movie starred Thomas Jane alongside of John Travolta and cost a total of $30 million to make. They created high speed chases on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, US 19 and even I275. It's a fun movie to watch!

Derby Lane located in St. Petersburg was used in the 2001 action-comedy Ocean’s Eleven. They hired a whopping 2,800 local residents as extras for the scene featuring Brad Pitt. This famous movie is a favorite for moviegoers. If you haven't seen it definitely check it out because you'll love it.

The 2011 Disney movie ‘Dolphin Tale’ was actually inspired by the true story! It's about Winter a dolphin that loses its tail and thankfully gets a prosthetic replacement. The movie had famous actors Harry Connick, Jr. and Ashley Judd and was a success. They filmed a lot of the movie in Clearwater Aquarium.

A classic movie! The 1990 film Edward Scissorhands was shot around the Dade City and Wesley Chapel area. Tim Burton featured Lutz in his movie with all the houses looking the same. As a matter of fact, you can take a tour of the house that was featured in the movie.

Ever been to Lowry Park Zoo? Well the 1990’s classic film ‘Goodfellas’ was filmed there. When actors Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro play mobsters that are asked to carry out a job in Tampa, a lot goes wrong. In a famous scene where they dangle an indebted gambler over the lion's den that was filmed at the zoo.