What a great way to end an amazing week. The Make a Splash Foundation made its final stop on their year long tour in NYC on Friday, Novenber 19th. For those of you who are not familiar with the Make a Splash Foundation, I will briefly explain their role in minority swimming and the reduction in the drowning rates.
The Make a Splash Foundation is a "arm " of the USA Swimming Foundation dedicated to decreasing the drowning rates of children and specifically minorities. The statistics and most of the research done informed us of how tragic and deadly drowning is to the minority population. The Make a Splash Foundation is dedicated to reducing the staggering numbers by helping to raise awareness and raise money to provide low cost or free swimming instruction to many urban and high minority areas through partnerships with local Make a Splash providers (swim swim swim I SAY is a local provider).
Heading this initiative is Cullen Jones, the Gold Medal Olympic African-American Swimming, who almost drowned at a very young age. Cullen spoke very candidly about his experiences as being the only African-American swimmer most of the time in the pool and his quest to achieve his dream. Though Cullen Jones is the figure at the head this ship, many other individuals are also involved in this project. Past Olympians that I remember watching win medals as a young girl are also lending their support. Let me stress the community of past swimmers of notoriety, who are Caucasian, are equally as concerned about these drowning rates. If you ever doubted it for a minute, watching and hearing the emotion from them proved that race, color or socio-economic background was the last thing on any of their minds. Being the only female, minority owned swimming company located in Upper Manhattan/Harlem in the room on Friday morning, makes me a very good judge of their dedication and commitment. To hear Rowdy Gaines and Mel Stewart speak passionately about their concerns proves their involvement, along with Cullen Jones, is true to their hearts. Imagine these Olympians getting into the water with kids that do not know how to swim and running clinics to teach them the basics of swimming and water safety.
I would like take a moment and speak about Rowdy Gaines. He introduced a video of a mother, Wanda Butts and the unfortunate story of the drowning involving her son, Josh. Rowdy expressed how he has seen the video many times and he still can not hold back an emotional feeling when watching the video. Wanda Butts turned her life changing experience into a positive force and founded, The Josh Project, in Toledo, Ohio, to help provide swimming instruction and safety lessons to children who do not know how to swim. I ask everyone before you leave this blog, please take a moment to go to the above web site, and read about her efforts in making a change. I had the pleasure of speaking with Wanda Butts this evening and let me convey what Wanda and I spoke about - "Josh did not die in vain because of all of our efforts." The Make a Splash Foundation is helping Wanda make sure in conjunction with her own efforts that Josh will be remembered and that he did not die in vain.
I sit here on a Sunday evening after teaching swimming this morning, and just want to thank the Make a Splash Foundation, USA Swimming Foundation, and The Josh Project for their dedication to making a difference in the reduction of drowning victims. As a local partner of the Make a Splash Foundation and a swimmer myself, swim swim swim I SAY hopes one day most of the content of this blog pertaining to drowning will no longer be fact and primarily part of our past. I urge all to visit the Make a Splash web site and make any donation to further the cause to end the drowning rates of children and minorities.
See you in the water!
http://www.swimswimswimisay.com/
