The John O. Wilson Center, the Hamilton Area YMCA and Hamilton Township proved, for the second summer in a row, the power of partnership.
This summer, the Wilson Center paired with the Hamilton Area YMCA to offer its 50 summer day campers, ages six to 14, free water safety and swimming lessons. Hamilton Township, meanwhile, provided transportation for campers, free of charge, between the two facilities.
“It’s a whole community effort, actually,” said Angelo Hall, executive director of the John O. Wilson Center, describing the collaboration that makes the swim program possible.
And the kids love it.
“My favorite thing about the swimming program is that [the instructors] want us to be better at swimming,” said Olivia Ames, 12. “I wasn’t a really strong swimmer before the program started, but now I’ve learned to gain more strength while I’m in the water.”
The partnership has gone so well that the two facilities have expanded their offerings to more programs for the kids. Starting in mid-July, the Wilson Center and YMCA started a new 12-week youth weight management fitness program. For this program, YMCA instructors visit the Wilson Center twice a week, to teach the kids various exercises and nutrition. This program works to include the families of the kids, as well.
There are also plans to expand their partnership to offer reading programs and tutorial programs along with the school district in the fall, according to Hall. The Wilson Center is looking to expand its existing tutoring program and offer a reading component to its services in partnership with the YMCA.
Pastor John O. Wilson founded the John O. Wilson Center in 1965 when he identified a need for child daycare within the community. Since then, the center has expanded to offer additional services to the community, such as a food pantry, utility assistance, rental and housing assistance, and job placement. The center hosts a senior lunch program, a Head Start program, and its summer camp program.
The six-week summer camp runs every July and August and has been around since the beginning of the center’s existence. The Wilson Center has plenty of plans for its future. The center’s summer camp program is expanding its activities on land, as well, with plans to offer hiking, horseback riding, and a wildlife preserve program to teach its campers how to care for rescued animals, next summer.
It also is continuing to expand its water safety program with the YMCA by partnering with the County Park Program to offer rowing lessons.
“There’s a growing need to make sure that all of our youth that are growing up in the area are exposed to a variety of different activities,” Hall said. “In particular, those that involve water and water safety.”
The start of the water safety program was already in discussion when a student of Hamilton High School West drowned in a Hamilton lake in June 2017. Marty Barchue, 17, was swimming with his friends when he was swept away and drowned because the current was too heavy, due to weather conditions, and he didn’t know how to swim.
The tragic incident sparked the urgency of the local water safety program. Now, for the second year in a row, the campers went for swimming lessons every Thursday throughout the program. The YMCA offered its facility and certified instructors for the lessons.
“We utilize the YMCA’s Safety Around Water program for this collaboration,” said Denise Goldenbaum Wyers, senior director of marketing and special events at the Hamilton Area YMCA. “Drowning can happen nearly anywhere with standing water. The SAW program is designed to reach children at risk of drowning and teach them water safety skills to reduce their risk of drowning.”
“They teach us more than swimming,” said Asia Peaks, 11. “We get to learn how to float and swim under water. I knew how to swim a little bit [before the program] but now I know how to swim a lot better.”
The campers collectively agree that they appreciate how much the instructors protect them and build their confidence in the water. The campers who knew how to swim somewhat before the program are excited to advance their skills.
“I like how [the instructors] trust us to go to the deep end by ourselves,” said Addison Smith, 9. “I already knew how to swim but they taught me more and I got better at it.”
Goldenbaum Wyers shared how the YMCA’s instructors observed that some of the campers were afraid to get their faces wet at the start of the season. But after six lessons, they were confident enough to submerge their faces under water.
This year, the program added recreational swim to the water safety program because a lot of the campers were eager to participate in water games in addition to instruction. The instructors were pleased with how many of the kids passed the deep end test so they could swim in deeper water during recreational time.
Brealle Bethea, 11, is one of the many campers who love the underwater games. “We get to jump and swim down into the water and then we have to find the bottle and bring it back up,” said Bethea, describing one of the games the YMCA uses to prepare kids if they unexpectedly find themselves in the water.
The Hamilton Area YMCA (Facebook file photo.),
