Our 2-week spring swim camp for the first graders of Mt. Zion (Johns Island) and Edith Frierson (Wadmalaw Island) elementary schools is over for this year.
Thank-you to the 15 wonderful volunteer coaches from Kiawah and Seabrook Island communities, each of whom had undergone swim lessons certification and youth protection training. 
Thanks also to our school teachers for helping so much and to the Boy Scouts for letting us use their pool.
On day one, most kids had never been in a pool before; some were afraid to put their faces in the water; others would not let go of the instructor. Every day each child learned specific swim components and their increasing skills were rigorously recorded.
Results
-On our last day, 8 of the 45 kids swam the width of the pool, 3 more swimming half way across.
-65% of the children passed a skills test including a 9 foot ‘dog paddle’/swim to the wall without life jackets.
-95% completed the wall swim with life jackets, passed wall walking and exiting the pool without assistance.
-All the kids could recite water safety rules, i.e., never go in the water without an adult, always wear a life jacket in the water and in boats, ‘throw, don’t go’ if someone is drowning, etc.
No swimmer is ‘Waterproof’. Our swimmers now are more WaterWise. Our teaching program is WaterWise (our organization Waterproof Inc. is a registered 501(c) non-profit organization). We are supported only by individual donations and grants from the Kiawah-Seabrook Exchange Club. For those who have donated in the past, you have out thanks. It costs about $100 per child (busses to transport the children, insurance, equipment, etc.) to run the program for 2 weeks. We desperately need your financial support to continue this program to keep the children of the Sea Islands safe around water. Please send contributions to WaterProof, Inc. at 1014 Embassy Row Way, Johns Island, SC 29455.
Thank-you.
-Derek Fyfe, Director