FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A South Florida mother is on a mission to ensure her son is remembered, seven years after his untimely passing.
Jamie Baker Jacobs spoke with 7News this weekend about the growing reef off Fort Lauderdale created in honor of her son, John Michael Baker.
“It warms my heart to know that I’ve actually been able to put him in the place that he loved the most,” she said.
The latest deployment of concrete modules at the John Michael Baker Memorial Reef is a sentimental one. Some of the 17-year-old’s ashes are encapsulated in a reef ball.
“Definitely an emotional day, a heartwarming day, a sad day,” said Baker Jacobs.
Baker was killed in 2015 when the boat he and his friends were on hit a bridge in Fort Lauderdale. The teen was about to start his senior year at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.
Following his death, the Bakers created the John Michael Baker Memorial Foundation, an annual fishing tournament that helps fund the artificial reef project.
“To be able to honor a young man who loved the water, who was a diver, who was a fisherman, I feel like there’s no better place for somebody to be that loves the water than a final resting place on the seafloor,” said Mike Lambrechts with the Coastal Conservation Association Florida.
The Baker family partnered with the CCA Broward Chapter to make this reef a reality.
“It’s basically a diver’s playground,” said Baker Jacobs, “so you have all these modules that have holes that you can swim through, and we’re starting to see a lot of growth on the modules.”
It is a living memorial for a passionate angler.
“This is something that we need, not only in Broward County and in Fort Lauderdale, but something that we really need worldwide,” said Lambrechts.
It will protect an ecosystem that Baker cared about deeply.
In terms of coordinates, the deep reef is located at N 26 09.4600 W 80 04.1300, and the shallow reef is located at N 26 08.4865 W 80 04.7344.
Baker’s family said they will continue to build more on the reef as long as they have their partnership and the support from the community.
For more information about the John Michael Baker Memorial Foundation, click here.
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