THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604110149
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Ashley Walters, 10, and Chris Cathlin, 11, are learning to swim.
The two Seatack Elementary School students are among 120 fourth- and fifth-graders who are taking the first strokes toward water safety this spring, thanks to a Hilltop Family YMCA youth project that extends helping hands across the water and neighborhood bounds.
The youths live in Seatack, the largest of the city's historically black communities and one of 12 neighborhoods targeted for improvements two decades ago.
The host YMCA is in Hilltop, a more affluent neighborhood a few miles west of Seatack.
The outreach swim project couldn't be more timely, since a new Seatack Recreation Center complete with indoor pool will be ready for use by neighborhood children next April. The old center, recently demolished, had no pool, and recreation centers that do have pools - Great Neck, Bayside, Princess Anne and Kempsville - were too far away for most Seatack families.
Every Friday for the past several months, a bus has taken two groups of about 20 students each to the YMCA on Laskin Road so they can get hands-on help in overcoming what is, for many, a real fear of water.
Getting the children to feel comfortable in the water is the big challenge, said Leigh Robbins, swim instructor at the Hilltop YMCA.
``It's the class I love teaching'' because it's the most necessary, she said. ``I'd like to teach free-style and backstroke, but the first priority, because of their fears, is to get them safe (in the water). So much of it is just being in the water, playing around, learning to tread water.''
Each participating student gets a total of four, hourlong lessons, but that's not enough, said Kelly Lindquist, the Hilltop YMCA's executive director. She said that she hopes to be able to expand the free instruction program to include all Seatack Elementary students next fall.
The swim project is an outgrowth of the YMCA's ``We Build People'' program, which has, in the past, offered free swimming lessons for children during spring break. The YMCA raises funds from the Hilltop community to support its outreach programs and membership and camp scholarships. Seatack Elementary School principal Katharine Parker is on the YMCA's board of directors, so the partnership was a natural.
``I haven't seen him swim yet, but he said he is learning,'' said Chris Cathlin's mother, Vena Cathlin. ``He loves the program. I hope it continues.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo courtesy of Hilltop Family YMCA
Leigh Robbins, swim instructor at the Hilltop YMCA, helps Seatack
Elementary students overcome their fears of the water. ``It's the
class I love teaching'' because it's the most necessary, she said.
by CNB