At Juniper Hill Park in Frankfort, a three-year-old holds tight to a lifeguard's red floater as he kicks his legs, getting a feel for the water. His mom, Natalie Gwishiri, is sitting nearby. She is a regular lap swimmer at this pool.
"I come here in the mornings," said Gwishiri. "But my children are three and seven, and there's no place where we can go to swim year-round. It's really hard for me to try to teach them how to swim when we only have access to an outdoor pool."
Six years ago, the capital city had two indoor pools, one at the YMCA and the other at Kentucky State University's Exum Center. Since then, the downtown YMCA has been demolished, and the KSU pool closed due to needed repairs. Now, residents wishing to swim indoors must travel to Versailles or Georgetown.
Gwishiri had hoped to see the KSU pool reopen - and she wasn't the only one.
"Our original mission was to get the Kentucky State Pool up and running," said Swim With Purpose chairman and co-founder Sam Taylor. "It turned out that it was a lot more money than anybody anticipated, and we weren't able to secure the necessary funds from the state, county, or local government. So we pivoted, and it actually is going to be better, because we've raised enough money to do 5,000 swim lessons."
Swim With Purpose is partnering with the YMCA of Central Kentucky and The City of Frankfort Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites Department to offer free swimming and water safety education for residents of Franklin County, as well as KSU students and staff.
Taylor is a lap swimmer like Gwishiri. He said he was inspired to teach essential swimming skills after watching college students learning to swim for the first time.
"At some point in your life, you're going to be on a boat. You're going to be at a pool. You're going to be at a lake fishing. You're going to be somewhere. So, everybody needs to know basic swimming skills."
All forty seats in this week's class are filled up. People of all ages are working one-on-one and in small groups with lifeguards to learn essential swimming and water safety skills. Taylor says the water safety instruction is every bit as important as the swim lessons.
"if your friend is in trouble in the water, you don't go in to try to help your friend because you'll end up usually two people drowning instead of one. So you throw something to the friend that's floatable, and you go and get help."
For the kids, that's been distilled into a simple phrase which they repeat back to their instructor: "Reach, Throw. Don't Go."
While all forty seats in this summer's round of free classes have filled up, Swim with Purpose will offer more this fall for second-grade students of Frankfort Independent Schools.
After that, Taylor says the plan is to expand to five more counties.
"Our goal is to have every county covered in some way so that second graders can get swim lessons free."
So far, the organization has provided swim and safety instruction to 175 people.
