LUTZ — May is National Water Safety Month, and in Tampa Bay, there is a swim school that doesn’t just believe swim lessons are important, but lifesaving.
Watermelon Swim is one of Tampa Bay’s oldest swim schools. On an average week, they teach 7,000 students, most of them children. They say you can never be too young or too safe.
WATCH Swim school uses month of May to splash messages of safety
According to Watermelon Swim, Florida leads the nation in accidental drownings, which is the number one cause of death for children under the age of four. However, formal swim lessons reduce that risk by 88 percent.
“We obviously promote water safety 365 days a year, but in the month of May, during National Water Safety Month, it really gives us an opportunity to amplify that message,” said Julia Stewart, with Watermelon Swim.
This month, students across all five Tampa Bay Watermelon Swim locations were asked to get into the pool in their regular clothes. It’s just another lesson in safety.
“To experience what it would be like in a real-life water emergency situation, so they practice wearing life jackets and treading water, they practice what it feels like to fall in the pool fully clothed and how to navigate that,” said Stewart.
During the month of May, Watermelon Swim is also teaming up with the Glazier Children’s Museum and Tampa Bay Buccaneer, Shaq Barrett.
“We are working with them for an in-museum PSA campaign that has water safety tips weaved throughout the museum building,” said Stewart.
Watermelon Swim said their biggest advocates are probably their own instructors, like Madi Byam. She learned how to swim at this very school back when she was a kid, and now here she is 20 years later, teaching the next generation.
Madi said her favorite part is interacting with the children and families.
“They get really excited, we’re clapping for them, celebrating them, they really do understand what they are doing is super important, and you can just see on their faces the smiles,” said Byam.
This week Madi was working with two-year-old Ainsley. Her mom said swim lessons have always been a top priority for their family.
“We’re from Florida and knowing being in Florida there is water everywhere and we love to go in the pool, we love to go in the boat, we are always at the beach, and it was important for us to know that she would be able to have the skills she needed,” said mother Ally Holding.
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