According to this May 2010 Wall Street Journal story, the USA Swimming 2010 diversity study found that 70% of African American children and 58% of Hispanic children report low to no swim ability.
Since 2007, the USA Swimming Foundation's Make a Splash program has taught basic swimming skills to 325,000 kids. The program gets a lot of support from Team USA Gold Medalist swimmer Cullen Jones, an African-American whose mother made him learn to swim after a near-drowning at age 5.
LOVE Cullen! Here's a recent interview with him:
Cullen's story was told in this 2007 film "Parting the Waters" - check out the synopsis and then the trailer:
Parting the Waters from Louise Rosen on Vimeo.
Not sure where to find the full-length film.
Here's the official website for the film. Not much info there, though - check out this Facebook page for more info.
Great post!!!! I believe this! When my children were toddlers, I enrolled them in "tiny tots" swimming classes because I am not a confident swimmer wanted them to be for safety reasons as well as fun. They didn't like it much when they started but I kept signing them for lessons. Guess what? Both wound up on the Y swimming team and went on to swim and play water polo in high school and college. My son now coaches college swimming! Swimming not only made them safe -- it paid for college and provided one of them with a career.
ReplyDeleteWow - what a great story! That makes me so happy! Sounds like your son has a great job, too:) Thanks so much for the comment!
ReplyDelete