BRIDGEPORT — As summer approaches, the safety of children as they take to pools and beaches is paramount.
“I heard you guys took a pledge, can you tell me what the pledge was?” Bridgeport Director of Health Martiza Bond prompted a group of children ages 5 to 11.
The children sat on picnic benches as they answered back, surrounded by backpacks and bags bursting with swim gear and towels, next to the old bath houses in Seaside Park.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United State of America,” the children began to recite.
Bond burst out in laughter.
“I meant the swim pledge you took this week,” she said with a smile. “Who can tell me about the swim safety pledge you all took?”
Each child enrolled in the weeklong swim safety program pledged to never swim alone, ask their parents to sign them up for lessons and stay away from drains in pools or hot tubs.
Director of Development at Cardinal Shehan Center Lorraine Gibbons said this program, which taught 130 Bridgeport children between the ages of 5 and 11 how to swim, would not have been possible without the city of Bridgeport’s efforts.
The city received a grant from the U.S. Consumer and Product Safely Commission’s Pool Safely Grant Program, Bond said. The program provides aid to help implement programs to help prevent drain entrapment and drowning in spas and pools.
“In supporting programs like these put on by the Cardinal Shehan Center, from the Pool Safely Grant Program has allowed the city to raise water safety awareness and improve swimming skills of undeserved low-income and minority children and their families,” Bond said.
During their lessons, the children learned in the pool at the Cardinal Shehan Center, with first responders like Christian Teague of Bridgeport fire and AMR nearby.
“I want everybody to be safe this summer, but have fun,” Teague said in his address to the children.
Not all of the 130 children showed up to the group’s “open water” field trip Thursday, which Gibbons said was because of the dreary weather.
“I can tell you right now, I am not getting in that cold water,” one of the kids joked.
But swimming at Seaside Park wasn’t a part of the program, Gibbons said. The trip was meant to expose the children to “open water,” after spending the week in a pool.
The children learned about the police’s scuba dive unit from Srg. Matt Cosgrove and Officer Gilbert Delvalle of the marine unit scuba team. The children saw the fire boat in action and the harbor master.
Program co-directors Katherine O’Hara and Carlos Reinoso said the after-school program ran from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 5 through Friday, June 9. The children learned about the beauties and dangers of water through the program.
Officer Nick Ortiz of the Bridgeport Police Department’s Community Service Division reminded the children to be safe this summer.
“Even though you know how to swim doesn’t mean you can’t drown,” he said.
Reinoso said those who want their children to learn how to swim but missed the program, can register their children for the center’s summer program. The center also offers swim lessons all year.