swim 4 fun-swim 4 life
From the FSwimming program promotes safety, fitness for minority...Jul. 13--HIGH POINT -- Only a month ago, 11-year-old Sarah Joseph didn't know a backstroke from a heatstroke.
Swimming sure looked like fun to the young Sudanese refugee -- her family settled in the High Point area several years ago -- but she'd never even had the first lesson.
One recent afternoon, though, Sarah beamed as she stood by the pool at High Point Swim Club, talking about what all she had learned in the water.
"It's a lot of fun," she said. "I've learned to kick, and I've learned to float on my back and on my belly."
Sarah is one of about 20 local Sudanese children learning to swim this summer, courtesy of an innovative outreach program called Swim for Fun/Swim for Life. The program, which was launched in January, provides free swimming lessons -- as well as swim gear including a swimsuit, goggles, kickboard, fins and towel -- for low-income and minority children.
"It's growing by leaps and bounds," said Evie Cottam, one of the program's founders. "We went from five kids in our beta test around the first of the year to 35 kids from the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club in our second session, and now we have 20 or more of the Sudanese refugees in this session."
The program, which was awarded a $10,000 United Way Venture Grant on Thursday, grew out of national statistics showing that a disproportionately high number of minority children do not know how to swim, Cottam said.
According to a recent national survey conducted by USA Swimming, approximately 60 percent of black and Hispanic/Latino children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their white counterparts. Also, the youth drowning rate among minorities is nearly double the national average.
"We started looking at a lot of free swimming programs that have been offered, but they haven't had super-high success rates," Cottam said.
"Sometimes low participation is an issue. Sometimes the teacher-to-student ratio is so high that the kids don't get much water time. Sometimes the cost of swimsuits is a problem. So we started looking at creating a program that would be successful."
The High Point program targets minority and low-income children who are already participating in existing organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club and programs for Sudanese children offered through Emmanuel Lutheran Church.
The program also features a much lower student-per-teacher ratio.
"We have one teacher for every three or four kids," explained Chrissy Milkosky, program coordinator. "The teachers are current athletes with the High Point Swim Club who have donated their time to help teach the children."
In addition to grants, the program gets funding from SmartChoice insurance agent Doug Witcher. TYR and Pannell Swim Shop donate swimsuits, goggles, swim fins and kickboards, and the Courtyard Marriott in High Point provides towels.
Transportation to the pool is provided, and the children receive a healthy snack after their lesson to reinforce positive eating habits.
"As you can see, it's been a huge community effort to get this program off the ground," Milkosky said.
The students, ranging in age from 6 to about 16, come for lessons twice a week and can stay in the program as long as necessary.
"They can repeat the course as often as they need -- it's until they master the skills," Cottam said. "Some kids jump right in and catch on, while others have a little more inhibition or may not be quite as athletic, so it takes them a little longer to learn."
The children learn a survival swimming stroke, as well as the four competitive strokes -- freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.
"They're learning how to use swimming as a skill to fight childhood obesity and to promote fitness, because swimming's a sport that can take you all the way to your late 90s," Milkosky said. "And if these kids ever want to get to the point where they can merge in with the competitive swim team that we run, there are funds available to do that."
That's what Sarah Joseph hopes to do someday, but first things first.
"I still can't swim in the deep water yet," she says with a big grin, "but I'm gonna learn."
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