18 May YMCA of Greater Kansas City Awarded $15,000 Grant from USA Swimming Foundation

YMCA of Greater Kansas City was recently awarded a $15,000 grant from the USA Swimming Foundation – Make a Splash to help provide scholarships for children to receive full session of swim lessons and for the Safety Around Water Drowning Prevention curriculum.

This program will provide potentially life-saving swimming lessons and drowning prevention education to school-age children most at risk for accidental drowning.

Children considered at-risk are those living in urban settings with little or no access to pools where they can learn water safety and swimming skills. High poverty in these communities limits the families’ abilities to enroll their children in traditional swim lessons. With scholarship support, the Y will provide this education through our relationships with community organizations, school districts, and other partners.

The expected results of this project are that youth increase awareness and knowledge about water safety and drowning prevention. The project will be successful if children that complete six lessons can demonstrate ten critical skills according to instructor observation. The data collection tool is a skills checklist, which includes: knowledge about water safety, climbing into the water safely unassisted, climbing out of the water safely unassisted, bobbing in the water, jumping in unassisted feet first, paddling and kicking to the wall on their stomach, front float, back float, treading water, and entering the water feet first and swimming 15 feet to the wall and back.

We anticipate serving 500 youth. Project participants will be children enrolled in youth development and early education programs in under-served communities in the Greater Kansas City region, including Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas.