Equal swimming access needed

This month, Charlottesville is demolishing Smith Pool to build a better fitness and aquatics facility (“Pool’s demolition imminent,” The Daily Progress, May 20). The new pool will give our community a chance to turn over a new leaf when it comes to equal access to swim facilities for children of all colors and economic backgrounds.

The Boys & Girls Club has a local chapter (the Cherry Avenue branch) in the middle school recreational facility (Buford) that contained Smith P. Boys & Girls Club members didn’t have much, if any, access to the pool in their own building, due to chronic shortages of water-safety certified staff and volunteers.

This was a local manifestation of the nationwide swimming education disparity that translates into significantly more drowning deaths among minorities. While the roots of the problem are bluntly economic, the reality is racial.

Madison House, a student-run organization at the University of Virginia, is prepared to work with the Boys & Girls Club to provide volunteers certified in adult, infant and child CPR and first aid, as well as water safety. The Boys & Girls Club administration need only approach Madison House with a proposed organizational structure for a swimming program and request the volunteers.

Outside UVa, ACAC and the Charlottesville Department of Parks and Recreation might be able to provide support, since they already have qualified swimming instructors.

Donated, new children’s swimsuits, goggles and towels could be collected around town and on campus to avoid asking low-income club members to incur additional expenses for water activities.

Donated post-swim snacks might be collected from local restaurants and grocery stores to provide club members an additional incentive to participate in the optional enrichment activity.

We must catch the window of changing local swimming facilities to equalize access. Our children deserve nothing less. When we build it, they will come.