Positively Naperville | The COVID Pivot
by Jim Elliott | June 17, 2026
When COVID shut down the world in 2020, nonprofits everywhere were forced to rethink everything. For Diveheart, a nonprofit dedicated to adaptive scuba and scuba therapy for individuals with disabilities, the impact was immediate and dramatic. Almost overnight, we had to cancel 14 destination dive trips and more than 200 pool programs around the world. Programs that had been years in the making suddenly disappeared from the calendar.
Like many organizations during the pandemic, we were asking ourselves, “Now what?”
Then something unexpected happened.
Out of nowhere, seven occupational therapy doctoral candidates from universities across the country approached Diveheart about doing their dissertations with us. Under normal circumstances, our schedule of international trips, training programs and pool sessions would never have allowed us the time to dedicate for projects of that scale. But COVID created an unusual pause — and with it, an opportunity.
Those seven students became a turning point for Diveheart.
Working together, we were able to create tools and educational systems that transformed the organization in ways we never imagined. Their research and collaboration helped us develop continuing education programs for physical therapists, occupational therapists and recreational therapists interested in adaptive scuba and scuba therapy.
The doctoral candidates also helped us create onboarding and assessment tools for therapists working in VA hospitals and rehabilitation organizations. These tools allow professionals to better evaluate participants with disabilities or injuries and determine whether they are good candidates for Diveheart’s adaptive scuba programs.
What started as a season of shutdown became a season of innovation.
COVID forced us to stop moving long enough to focus on infrastructure, education and research. Instead of traveling the world running programs, we spent time building systems that would ultimately allow Diveheart to expand its impact far beyond the pool deck.
The experience reinforced something I’ve always believed: there are no chance meetings and no chance opportunities. Opportunities are often disguised as setbacks, interruptions, or inconveniences. The key is recognizing them when they appear and having the courage to act on them.
Diveheart definitely took lemons and made lemonade during one of the most difficult times in modern history.
Today, the tools and educational resources created during that unexpected downtime continue to benefit therapists, veterans, adaptive athletes and individuals with disabilities around the world. What initially felt like a devastating pause ultimately became one of the most productive and transformative periods in Diveheart’s history.