I-15 Billboard Sends Message in Memory of Murrieta Girl

Motorists on northbound Interstate 15 just past Lake Street in Lake Elsinore may have noticed a large photo of a teenaged girl smiling down from a billboard.

If they look a little closer, they will see that her life was cut short.

Tiffany Amber Breslin would have turned 20 years old on Aug. 16.

Instead, her memory lives on through a nonprofit organization run by her parents, Mike and Debbie Breslin of Murrieta, her older sister, Lauren Breslin, and most recently, the billboard.

Tiffany was 14 years old in the summer of 2008 and was about to begin her freshman year at Murrieta Valley High School when she died as a result of a boating accident on the Colorado River. It is believed that the accident was caused by an alleged intoxicated boater who recklessly hit a Sea Doo—personal watercraft—that Tiffany and her friend, Desiree Hobill, 19, were riding on while vacationing.

The purple, black and white billboard shows a large photo of Tiffany and says: “Don’t Drink & Drive Anywhere!” Funds to install the large reminder were donated by the Mike and Shara Sweeney Family Foundation.

The Breslins have previously had similar billboards installed in Needles, Calif., and Lake Havasu, Ariz., due to those being popular recreational boating areas.

The sign installed Monday in Lake Elsinore marks the first they have had put up in southwest Riverside County.

“We just hit five years, so it has been a little bit of a struggle,” Debbie said. “We just don’t want her to be forgotten, she had a purpose.”

Catching the attention of freeway drivers for just those few seconds it takes to look at a billboard is part of that purpose, her mother said.

“You have a choice when you decide to drink, but when you decide to go ahead and drink and go on the road or water you put all others' lives in danger,” Debbie said.

Debbie has also been known to take Tiffany’s message to local schools in partnership with ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation.

Lauren, older than Tiffany by four years, honors her only sister’s memory by administering the website for the family’s nonprofit foundation, Tiffanysgift.org, which she recently made significant upgrades to.

“I’ve had a hand in it all,” Lauren said. “I don’t like the reasoning behind it—it’s hard that it is my sister—but I’m proud of what we’ve done.”

That includes having the billboard installed locally.

“That was our next step with the foundation, just to get this here,” Lauren said.

Mike approaches the loss of his daughter in another way: by offering hitting lessons to area youth in a batting cage he had constructed on their Murrieta property for Tiffany, who was an avid softball player.

“Helping kids, since Tiffany passed away that is what keeps me going,” Mike said. “We talk about Tiffany, everybody knows about Tiffany who hits with me. That is her cage.”

Mike said he often commutes along I-15, and that seeing the recently installed billboard “just hits home.”

“It has killed us for the last five years, so our goal is to have this not happen to other people,” Mike said. “One person saves one person, who saves another person...If we didn’t do what we were doing in the community, we would be lost.”