Several hundred Talbot County children, along with their parents, celebrated their “graduation” Friday night from the St. Michaels Community Center’s “Bay Hundred Swim Kids” program with a party at the St. Michaels Bay Hundred Pool. During the summer, 275 non-swimmers learned how to swim in the program.
The effort is part of the Miles River Yacht Club Foundation’s “SOS: Sink or Swim” initiative to teach all Talbot County children under 15 how to swim. The Foundation provided funding to pay for instructors, give full tuition scholarships to all the children, offer them free admission to the pool for the summer so they could reinforce their new swimming capability, and give them Bay Hundred Swim Kids tee shirts so they can take pride in their new accomplishment. The non-swimmers were enrolled by the St. Michaels Community Center and Critchlow Atkins Childrens Center.
Dr. Sherry Manning, Chairman of the MRYC Foundation, said “we deplore the number of drownings we see in the Bay, ponds, rivers and pools every year. We think knowing how to swim is a basic life skill that every child in Talbot County should have, a prelude to being a boater, and an athletic accomplishment that will enrich every child’s life. ”
The Spy caught up with Pam Phillips, the Community center’s youth Program coordinator on Friday night, at the well-attended celebration of the first year’s graduating class. Pam talks about the program and the extraordinary need to make sure that kids in Talbot County, which has more waterfront access than any other county in Maryland, not only feel safe in the water, but also know the joys that come with swimming itself.
This video is approximately two minutes long
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