(COLORADO SPRINGS) — On June 22, the World’s Largest Swimming Lesson took place, and here in Southern Colorado, there was one facility that joined in, Little Fins Swimming School.
“We’re excited to be invited to be a host this year,” said owner of Little Fins, Lauri Armstrong. “We’re the only host location in Colorado Springs and basically they are trying to hit their goal to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, so we’re excited to be a part of that.”
All throughout the day, Little Fins welcomed children of all ages to have a twenty minute free swimming lesson.
“So we’re going to work with your child one on one for a 20 minute lesson,” Lauri Armstrong said. “I know 20 minutes doesn’t seem like very long, but when you’re working one-on-one with an instructor, we’re going to be able to cater that lesson to that child and really work on what can they do and how can we help them improve in order to learn how to be water safe.”
Outside of Little Fins, the staff welcomed children in for their free swim lesson.
The purpose of the event is to highlight the importance of teaching one’s child to swim.
“So hundreds of aquatic facilities and on six different continents are teaching swim lessons today to get the word out that swim lessons save lives,” Armstrong said. “Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children under the age of four. It is the second leading cause of death in children under the age of 14. So it’s so important to teach your kids how to swim, teach them to be water safe.”
For parent Sean Hennesy, he dropped off his son for a swim lesson and watched him learn from the Little Fins instructor. Hennesy expressed his gratitude to Little Fins for providing water safety.
“It means a lot,” Hennesy said. “It means they take safety seriously and I think for the little ones, it means hopefully a lot of safe lives.”
One boy swims in the pool and practiced on the kickboard.
Armstrong shared how these swimming lessons can best prepare a child in the chance they do fall in the pool.
“Often drownings happen right by the edge of the water because kids natural instinct is to push away,” Armstrong said. “And we want to teach them how to grab on and hold on. So we’ll work on some of that as well and then putting eyes under, doing some breath control. Again, if they’re able to… we can even work on strokes in that amount of time.”
The pool was filled as children had one-on-one lessons and parents watched.
Out in the pool was instructor Haley Armstrong, who has been teaching at Little Fins for over eight years.
“Water safety is super important, but it can be very scary,” Haley said. It is a process, but the end results are amazing. I have little kids going from screaming coming to the swimming pool and then crying to get out of the swimming pool.”
One little girl getting ready to jump into the pool and swim to Haley Armstrong.
Haley explained the process in guiding these children in the swimming pool.
“Most kids who come and see us are not water safe at all,” Haley said. “So we always start at water safety floating on their back, getting them comfortable, going underwater, eventually helping them be able to go all the way to the bottom of the pool, being able to come up, get their chin up, go to their back, and we do an exit strategy.”
One little girl in a flotation device to help her get used to the water.
With June 21 being the first day of summer, Lauri Armstrong stressed the significance of water safety for Southern Colorado parents and their children.
“So we live in Colorado, there are not a lot of bodies of water,” Lauri said. “Our kids don’t learn how to swim naturally, we don’t have oceans and lakes everywhere. So we have to give that gift to our children here in Colorado. It is so important and it’s top of mind right now [as] we’re going into summer everyone wants to be in the pool.”
