Greater Richmond Aquatics Partnership

Where you live, the color of your skin, and the amount of money your family makes may affect your chances of drowning. Drowning prevention isn’t just a safety issue; it’s an issue of equity. Many resources related to water recreation such as learning to swim, access to safe sites, lifejackets, lifeguards, and water related education can be expensive. Too many residents do not have access to safe recreational waters, or opportunities to learn about them. Economically disadvantaged areas have strikingly higher rates of drowning fatalities with people of color disproportionately affected. African-American youth are three times as likely to drown as their white peers.

SwimRVA is determined to build a more safe, healthy and equitable community where everyone has access to water safety education and health opportunities.

We strive to:
(1) make our communities safer, healthier, and more equitable
Through free Learn to Swim programs we teach a skill vital to youth safety that offers a host of physical benefits—improving fitness and reducing risks for obesity and chronic conditions—while supporting mental and social well-being with powerful self-esteem generation and achievement recognition. Targeting underserved communities, we annually reach 2,000 youth across five jurisdictions – Chesterfield, Hopewell City, Colonial Heights, Hanover and Richmond City.

(2) create pathways to work
SwimRVA’s game changing workforce development program takes adolescents, especially youth of color, from minimal swimming ability to certified lifeguards. We remove obstacles of cost, location and transportation by offering free training as credit-bearing courses in local high schools. This unique program not only multiplies the effect of water safety but also offers a clear entryway into countless opportunities in the recreation industry and beyond. This school model of a credit-bearing lifeguarding course within the recreation and tourism track is the first of its kind in Virginia. It is designed to be expandable with health trainings like EMT certification and more while also seeking to offset the nationwide shortage of lifeguards who keep our communities safe.

(3) build a culture of health/wellness across generations
By making aquatics accessible through moderate income-based fees, we offer opportunities for every person to exercise where they live, work and play. Aquatics builds health of people and communities. The individual health benefits — both physical and mental — of time in the water are clear, especially for seniors. Equally important, we drive connectivity and build health equity across the community.

•Learn to Swim: free swim lessons for under-resourced schools targeting youth of color and youth from low-income families.
• Pathways to Gold: free, year-round swimming through a new collaboration with Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, Anna Julia Cooper School and Peter Paul Development Center.
• Swim For Life: groundbreaking workforce development program that takes students from little swim ability to certified lifeguards
• Senior Wellness: communal opportunities for health and healing
• Autism Swims: swim lessons uniquely designed and led by instructors trained in ASD
• Sports Tourism: through our competiton arena and pool that was used in the 2008 US Olympic Trials, a 25 yard instructional pool and a therapy center at our flagship facility we boost sports tourism with 30-35 weekends/year, realizing over $5 million per year of impact
•SwimRVA North: capital campaign to turn a gifted property into a year-round swim center serving northside Richmond and eastern Henrico

Opening our world-class aquatics center, the first of its kind in Central Virginia in 2012, SwimRVA now delivers high quality aquatics programming with multiple facilities throughout our region as we aim to make the entirety of Richmond immune to drowning and to use aquatics as a tool for health and community building. Our Instructors are certified and attend a weekly in-service to reinforce safety and SwimRVA Swim School competencies. Each Instructor has a minimum of 8 hours of classroom and water training before assisting with our lessons.

Our Learn to Swim Program teaches basic survival strokes through 5.25 hours of in-water instruction with a maximum 6:1 student to instructor ratio. Lessons follow SwimRVA’s station-based program—consistent with American Red Cross standards and proven effective with more than 8,000 thousand youth served across our region—designed to improve swim ability while also teaching youth to strive for goals, reach their potential, respect each other, and adopt healthy attitudes. SwimRVA is leading the effort to drownproof the Richmond region with our free Learn to Swim program, annually reaching more than 2,000 under-served youth and improving the swim ability of 90% of them. Further, we typically serve 600 seniors weekly at our Chesterfield pool. Our Autism swims program has 144 students on the wait list. Our Pathways to Gold has served 349 youth in Richmond’s East End. Our Swim for Life program is developing in Chesterfield, Henrico and Church Hill Academy serving over 60 students a year.

Adam Kennedy leads SwimRVA as its Executive Director with a passion for swimming that stems from nearly a lifetime in the water – from his first competition at age six and continuing to swim through college. After completing his undergraduate degree at Davidson College, he went on to coach swimming at Colgate University, Ohio University (where he completed a Master of Science in Coaching Education), the United States Naval Academy, and most recently University of the Pacific.

SwimRVA is committed to making aquatics sustainable and accessible, addressing inequities, and facilitating engagement in physical activity. It starts with learning to swim as we remove barriers rooted in a history of racism. It achieves lasting impact through workforce engagement and hiring as we introduce underrepresented groups to aquatics careers. We work closely with the communities we serve to define goals that meet the needs of health, safety, equity, employment and opportunity.

Two prime examples include:
• The East End Collaboration: By offering swim lessons at no cost to youth at the Salvation Army Neighborhood Center, we remove the two greatest barriers to access (high costs of enrollment and accessible quality indoor recreational facilities), fostering healthy lifestyle patterns —and their benefits—that youth will carry forward for the rest of their lives. 95% of the youth we serve here are youth of color, and 90% are economically disadvantaged.

• SwimRVA North: In 2020, we acquired a second location at the intersection of Northside and Eastern Henrico which we are renovating to run a full suite of programming targeting at-risk and autistic youth and seniors, and fostering the connections that define community. The Chamberlayne census shows 24% of the population over 65— 8% higher than the county average (and the number of physically disabled seniors is even more disparate); 2/3 of neighboring schools have lost full accreditation. Turning SwimRVA North into a year-round facility will further invest in inclusivity by creating a workforce development hub for the regional aquatics industry, training 500 youth from all backgrounds to enter the workforce with skills that will lead them to a livable wage.