I am writing as a follow up to the front-page article published on Oct. 8 headlined “Rise in child water deaths.” The issue of youth aquatic safety is critically important, especially in New Hampshire where the great outdoors is so important to both our economy and our lifestyles.
We would like to inform Monitor readers that the Concord Family YMCA, as well and the YMCAs across New Hampshire, have a long history of prioritizing water safety for children and families. Collectively, the New Hampshire YMCAs teach over 10,000 children and adults to swim annually. The Concord Family YMCA alone provides over 2,000 swim lessons teaching more than 700 kids and adults how to swim each year.
In addition to providing swim lessons, YMCAs across the country have adopted a curriculum called Safety Around Water (SAW), which teaches non-swimmers essential water-safety skills. As the article highlighted, water safety is particularly an issue with the low-income and New American communities. To help address this in the capital area the Concord Family YMCA has partnered with the Concord Housing Authority and area child care centers to provide the weeklong SAW training for no cost to over 100 low-income and New American children annually for the past several years.
The New Hampshire YMCAs, including the Concord Family YMCA, will continue to prioritize aquatic safety in our efforts to help strengthen the foundation of our community.
JAMES S. DOREMUS
Henniker
(The writer is chief executive officer for Concord Family YMCA.)