Philly’s public swimming pools are open for eight weeks, max.
Charisma Presley desires of a metropolis the place households have entry to public swimming pools gone Labor Day, the place they’ll swim totally free year-round.
So for the previous a number of years, Presley has spearheaded a gaggle that retains the dialog alive, reminding Philadelphians — and their elected officers — what town as soon as had, and the way youths and households would profit from having that once more.
“We need year-round access and equity, and we need sustainable indoor infrastructure, not seasonal pools that leave our communities behind,” Presley stated from the bleachers of a Philly rec middle on a sweltering summer season Wednesday earlier than swimming pools closed.
Presley and the opposite members of Friends of Philly Aquatics remind anybody who will pay attention of their two important objectives: they need Pickett Pool in Germantown renovated and reopened, and Marcus Foster Pool in Nicetown rebuilt and reopened.
Both swimming pools are owned by the Philadelphia School District however for many years ran applications by town’s Parks and Recreation Department. Foster closed in 2008 and Pickett in 2019.
Friends of Philly Aquatics, the successor group to Friends of Pickett Pool, helped notch a win in 2023, when the varsity board voted to reopen Sayre Pool, one other district-owned pool in West Philadelphia, in a deal that dedicated the district to spending about $11 million and town greater than $3 million.
But for now, only one indoor public pool is open citywide: at Lincoln High within the Northeast. (Two extra district colleges, Fels and Widener Memorial, have swimming pools, however they’re not open to the general public.)
For a time, Philadelphia’s city-sponsored swimming program was nationally famend — so attention-grabbing that it will definitely turned the topic of Pride, a 2007 Terrence Howard movie that dramatized the plight of coach Jim Ellis, and the challenges and triumphs the all-Black staff confronted.
But in actual life, financing ebbed, swimming pools deteriorated, and this system ultimately stopped. (Ellis nonetheless coaches, however the metropolis now not runs a swim staff.)
‘We’re not going to be othered’
Presley grew up in Nicetown with a community-activist mom who observed that neighborhood children weren’t utilizing the Marcus Foster pool a lot.
“She said, ‘Kids in this community don’t know how to swim,’ and she started recruiting,” stated Presley. It bothered Presley’s mother that swimming was a given in lots of locations, however in her Black group, households have been reluctant to place their youngsters in swimming pools.
“She said, ‘I’m not going to feel isolated like that, we’re not going to be othered,’” Presley stated.
Presley and her sister turned swimmers, and it enriched their lives — gave them focus and job alternatives. Pools have been a part of the material of their households, then Marcus Foster closed. At the time, the district stated it was only for repairs.
But years have passed by with no entry to year-round public swimming pools, shutting off lots of people’s entry to swimming. The Salvation Army Philadelphia Kroc Center does function in Nicetown, however “why are we privatizing swimming?” Presley stated — not everybody can afford to affix a personal pool.
Presley’s grassroots coalition — of us who swam at Pickett and Foster, folks for whom swimming is an integral a part of their lives — is modest.
But they’re constant. Members of the Friends of Philly Aquatics — together with Presley’s three school-age youngsters — present up in school board conferences and City Council hearings, making a plug for Pickett and Foster.
Empowering swimmers
Their message is touchdown: when Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. offered his strategic plan, Accelerate Philly, one of many motion gadgets was “pilot learn to swim programs in different parts of the city in alignment with the curriculum.”
Swimming classes have been essential, the plan stated, due to the danger of drowning. “Black/African American and Latino urban youth report having poor swimming skills at higher rates than their white peers, putting them at greater risk of swimming related injury or death.”
Still, in a traditionally underfunded district, even the superintendent publicly declaring swimming a precedence has not meant a lot in actuality. No such learn-to-swim program has been launched.
So the Friends of Philly Aquatics is plugging away, with advocacy and with learn-to-swim classes. This summer season, Presley and her sister, Cokettia Rawlerson, accomplished dry-land water consciousness classes with a whole bunch of campers at rec facilities throughout town.
When the sisters traveled to Ghana on a household journey just a few years again, they marveled at how a lot swimming was a part of the tradition there, Presley instructed a gaggle of campers on the Athletic Rec Center on North twenty sixth Street, close to Girard College.
Historically, some Black Americans stayed away from swimming, Presley instructed the youngsters.
“They told them scary stories like, ‘You’re going to sink because of the color of your skin,’” stated Presley. “We’re here today to tell you that swimming is for everyone. We want to teach you how to be safe in, around and near all bodies of water.”
Friends of Philly Aquatics additionally took a gaggle of 17 center and excessive schoolers this summer season to see Gretna Glen, a lake and retreat middle in Lebanon County, central Pennsylvania, to present them publicity to totally different our bodies of water and extra confidence in swimming.
The six to eight weeks that public swimming pools are open within the metropolis simply isn’t a sustained-enough stretch to study to swim, the sisters stated, and that has a ripple impact — it’s robust for town to rent sufficient certified lifeguards, and even these with credentials typically battle.
The work feels pressing to Presley, who spends her skilled life as director of Retention and Student Success at Villanova University, and to Rawlerson, who’s an assistant principal at Alain Locke Elementary in West Philadelphia.
“Lifeguards are calling us, saying, ‘I need you go to go to these pools, I need you to help,’” Presley stated. “Some of the lifeguards can’t even swim the length of the pool. We’re really just trying to empower people.”
Swimming can elevate town up and be a vital a part of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s plan to make town safer, cleaner and greener, the sisters stated.
“People want to be lifeguards, but they don’t know how to swim,” stated Presley. “They’re broke and bored and we wonder why they’re on the corners. We really need to start cultivating swim lessons and pools.”