1,500 Kids Getting Free Swim Lessons

When Joey Roberts was 8 years old, he nearly drowned at a party.

“I was pulled from the pool and was unconscious,” he said,

As executive director of the West St. Tammany YMCA, he’s made it his mission to ensure as many kids as possible don’t meet a similar fate by providing subsidized or free lessons to qualifying families.

He now has more of those lessons to give. That’s thanks to the recent donation of 1,500 swim lessons by Covington-based POOLCORP, an international distributor of pool supplies, equipment and related outdoor products.

The nonprofit and the company came together June 24 to announce the donation during a water safety day for 35 kids from the Boys & Girls Club of Covington.

“I was one of these kids. I had a firsthand experience of being afraid to swim,” Roberts said as YMCA swim instructors showed the group of 6- to 14-year-olds – some of whom were in life vests after failing the day’s initial swim test – how to float, find the safety of the pool wall, blow bubbles and more.

For POOLCORP, donating swim lessons is a way to help more kids in the community learn what is a crucial life skill, said Donna Williams, its chief marketing officer.

“We want the water to be something to celebrate and enjoy, not something to be afraid of,” she said. “Swimming is not only a crucial life skill, but a sport that can be enjoyed by a toddler to a senior citizen. And enjoyed with your families. This is how you do it safely,” Williams added.

The donation could not come at a better time.

The latest stats from the Louisiana Department of Health show the state’s drowning rate went up 60% compared to the year before, said Rachael Jonas, executive director of aquatics for the YMCA of Greater New Orleans, which includes the West St. Tammany YMCA.

“I think we can attribute that to the pandemic and a lack of swim lessons. And more backyard pools. That’s where most drownings happened,” Jonas said. “There was an influx of backyard pools and children not being properly supervised, because a child can drown in as little as 6 inches of water.”

Drowning, she added, is the No. 1 cause of death among children ages 1 to 4 and the second leading cause of death for ages 5 to 12. The ability to help this many kids get lessons is “huge,’ Jonas said.

Because local YMCAs couldn’t offer swim lessons last year during COVID-19 shutdowns, they’ve experienced two years’ worth of demand for lessons. “This year was the most demand we’ve probably seen in 10 years,” Jonas said.

The West St. Tammany YMCA intends to give 500 of the donated swim lessons at their facility throughout the coming year, Roberts said, since summer programming there is fully booked. Some lessons will be given to kids at the Boys & Girls Club of Slidell, which has a pool.

The remaining lessons will go to the YMCA of Greater New Orleans to be used at their pools in Belle Chasse, Buras, Marrero, Metairie and Port Sulphur. Because those locations have unheated seasonal pools, Jonas said the YMCA will work with the Jefferson Parish and New Orleans recreation departments to use the departments’ pools for lessons during the school year.

Families must complete financial aid documentation to get one of the free lessons, which take place in six to eight 30-minute sessions.

Those sessions include learning skills such as how to save themselves if they fall into a pool. They’ll also learn how to save someone, which “is important because most of the people who’ll drown will end up being someone trying to save somebody else in first place,” Roberts said.

He said swim lessons are “not just about saving someone’s life, but also about building kids’ confidence levels and their ability to be roles models to others.”

For the kids participating in the water safety day, the lessons went beyond what they learned in the pool.

They also got to see examples of good character, as well as the leadership and citizenship skills the Boys & Girls club tries to teach, said Angel Nelson, chief operating officer of the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Louisiana, which includes the Covington club.

“They will never forget this experience. We teach our kids to give back to their community, and we’re setting that example,” Nelson said. “This is fun; it’s healthy; it’s giving back to the community, and it’s creating some normalcy during the pandemic.”

Each child went home with vouchers for one of the donated lessons, as well as a bag filled with towels, swim goggles, sunglasses, swim caps, and a brightly colored swimsuit, all of which were donated by the pool company along with the lessons.

Williams said POOLCORP hopes this donation will act as a pilot program. “We’re a global company, and we would love to continue to do this in other communities. There’s such a need because these children would not learn to swim otherwise,” she said.

For Roberts, his childhood experience makes the donation even more meaningful. “There’s all these things I’ve gotten to do with my life, and it could have all just ended,” he said. “The potential that we have as a Y, and me as the director, to do this – it’s on a level that emotionally for me I can’t put into words.”