Kids swimming at the YMCA is a timeless tradition like no other. But when the weather heats up and kids spend summer days in the pool, it becomes even more important to ensure everyone is safe in and around the water.
Summer LEAP — which stands for Learning Enrichment to Achieve Potential — provides six weeks of summer learning and enrichment for children in the City of Rochester. Each summer, one integral part of the program is swimming, giving the kids the opportunity to not only have fun in the pool but also instructions to make sure they are as safe as possible in the water. This summer, the program has made its way to the Maplewood Family YMCA.
“There’s something about kids swimming, what it does to them,” said Luis Perez, President & Chief Executive Officer of Greater Rochester Summer Learning Association (GRSLA) and Summer LEAP. “Often overcoming a familiar fear. For the little ones, something happens to their psyche their ego, their self-confidence.”
Perez said the partnership with the Y is all about providing equity for children in the City of Rochester to have the opportunity to take part in a Safety Around Water progam. He wants to make sure that more kids are given the resources they need to get as comfortable as they can being in the water.
Perez takes water safety to the heart following personal tragedies. In high school, two of his friends passed away due to drowning. He noted that neither of them learned to swim in their youth. Considering that Rochester is located near Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, Perez wants to ensure that kids and families feel as safe as possible when swimming.
“I used to talk to a lot of families that weren’t going to go to the lake or weren’t going to go to Canandaigua because they were afraid of the water,” said Perez.
That’s why Perez sought out the Y; considering our initiatives with Safety Around Water, he wanted to ensure that Summer LEAP was able to provide the children in the program with the best opportunity to learn safer methods when it comes to the pool.
“Nobody does it better than the Y,” said Perez. ”Nobody’s studied it more than the Y. The resources and trainings that are offered through the YMCA network nationwide, people don’t realize just how much the Y pours into Safety Around Water.”
“What does the program consist of?" Courtney Smart, Summer LEAP Classroom Liaison & Monitor, says it’s the hands-on instruction that stands out to her about this partnership, specifically with the adjusted instruction to make sense to Pre-K-aged children and that it prioritizes each individual's skill levels.
“The Y staff, they’re enriching and very attentive to the kids,” said Smart.
“They’re teaching them the basics of how to get into a pool safely, the importance of wearing a lifejacket, the rules of the pool. Those are constantly followed so that when kids go to different pools, they know the expectations of what being in the pool is supposed to be.”
Omar Hidalgo, Aquatics Director at the Maplewood Family YMCA, echoed that the goal of the program was to get the kids as comfortable as possible being in the pool. In his opinion, the six-week program was more than enough time to help the kids gain an understanding of how to assess their own skills when it comes to swimming difficulty. Knowing how important water safety is, he also noted the future it can provide for the children.
"Throughout this process, I kept in touch with the staff from Summer LEAP, and it kept dawning on me how this program could really set the kids up for the future," said Hidalgo. "One of our lifeguards, Toriel, said she took part in the Summer LEAP program as a child and it really inspired her love and passion to work in the water."
Hidalgo noted that our instructors took the time to not only provide the kids with instruction — like showering before getting into the pool, finding lane lines, or surveying what guards are on deck — but to also build a rapport with them to help them find their way even before entering the water.
Laura Kroening, Executive Director at the Maplewood Family YMCA and the YMCA at Innovation Square has also been pleased to reconnect with Summer LEAP.
"It’s been rewarding to work with Luis and the team over the past few years to provide swim lessons to the Summer LEAP students," said Kroening. "It’s fun to see them excited and learning water safety skills that can keep them safe around water and inspire a love of swimming."
Perez has been involved with partnerships like these with the YMCA in the past. While working with Minority Achievers, he and Hon. Teresa D. Johnson helped bring this national program to the YMCA while serving as board members in the 1980s. Roughly 40 years later, he’s glad to be once again working with the YMCA in this capacity.
“We’re very appreciative of the partnership, the ease by which we can get things done and serve more kids,” said Perez. “I think it’s mutually beneficial. The Y gets to host more kids by having them use your facilities, we get to move forward in what we’re trying to accomplish with kids and serving families”
The YMCA of Greater Rochester looks forward seeing more kids leaping into the pool with the help of Summer LEAP.