Although Laura Diamond spent most of her lifetime in the Chicagoland area, she was always an ocean lover and beach babe at heart. She spent her youth in the Chicagoland area, spent her twenties living it up in Miami, and returned back to the Chicagoland area where she married and had her two children, Alex and Lisa.

As a mother and wife, she planned many family vacations back to the beaches she loved in Florida and South Carolina. She loved waking up every day to watch the sunrise over the ocean. Her family spent the day walking the beaches for seashells, building sandcastles, burying each other in the sand, and swimming in the ocean. Laura always kept a careful watch while sun tanning nearby.

During the South Carolina vacations, Laura and her kids would visit her good friends, Barbara and Ben Bergwerf who volunteer with the Sea Turtle Rescue Teams along the beaches of South Carolina. Laura, Alex, and Lisa would get the full behind-the-scenes tour of the Sea Turtle Care Center at the South Carolina Aquarium from Barbara. They spent their time volunteering at the Sea Turtle Care Center and spending nights watching sea turtle nests hatch, making sure the sea turtle hatchlings made it to the ocean underneath the moon and the shooting stars. These moments were her family's favorite cherished memories together and shaped her children's life paths as they grew older.

Laura was always incorporating animals into family vacations, whether it was watching sea turtles hatch, swimming with stingrays, kayaking with alligators, horseback riding, snorkeling, or visiting birds of prey conservation centers. She was always an animal lover and her family has set up this donation page in her honor. All proceeds will go to the Sea Turtle Care Center at the South Carolina Aquarium.

About the Sea Turtle Care Center

When a sea turtle is found stranded or injured, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources brings the animal to the South Carolina Aquarium's Sea Turtle Care Center for treatment. Sea turtles arrive at the Care Center suffering from a variety of ailments, including debilitated turtle syndrome, predation and boat strike wounds, injuries from accidental interactions with fishing gear, and even exposure to dangerously low temperatures. Staff veterinarians diagnose each turtle and work with Care Center staff and volunteers to provide treatments and rehabilitative care. To date, 398 sea turtles have been rehabilitated and released back into the wild. The generous support of donors makes this work possible.

To learn more about the Sea Turtle Care Center, please visit scaquarium.org/stcc.