ATLANTA — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that drowning is the Number 1 killer of young children in the United States.
In the metro Atlanta area, local middle school teachers showed Channel 2′s Michael Seiden how they’re working to save lives through teamwork, competition and sportsmanship.
It’s a Thursday evening in December and students at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School are putting extra work in to learn how to swim.
Channel 2 Action News got to see why the students have had so much success in their first year as a swim club.
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Earlier in December, King Middle School was one of more than 50 schools to participate in a middle school swimming championship at the Marist School in Brookhaven.
In Atlanta, teachers Shondel Robinson and Robert Butts volunteer to coach the students, many of whom did not know how to swim until they started taking lessons at the school.
“We had the opportunity to get kids that never swam before, never had [an] interest in it before, and now they love it and they want to compete,” Robinson told Channel 2 Action News.
Butts said teaching the students to swim has been very rewarding.
“When you start something from the bottom and you see kids that are learning and they could not swim at all and now they are somewhat of an advanced swimmer. That makes me feel great,” Butts said.
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The CDC reports drowning is the biggest killer of young children in America, and even in 2023, disparities in deaths among some racial groups have gotten worse.
“There’s not a lot of black [or] brown kids that’s introduced to the water, unfortunately. It’s one thing I’m pushing is that we have diversity of water,” Robinson said.
At King Middle School, Channel 2 Action News was able to meet some of the swimmers, including Alexandria Driever.
“I feel actually amazing,” Driever said. “I’m so used to the water, I like water. I drink a lot of water.”
Driever is only in the seventh grade, but she’s already focused on achieving her dream.
“I love swimming. It’s something I really enjoy, and I want to accomplish my dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer,” Driever said.
Her teammate, Adrian Barhite, said she loves the bond swimming together has built among the students.
“It makes me feel special in a good way because we have something that not everybody has,” Barhite told Seiden.
For other students, the competition helps them handle pressure in other situations.
“A lot of this, it’s very, it’s kind of nerve-wracking when you’re swimming against other people,” William Brown, a sixth grader, said. “So you can also use that when you’re doing like, big tests.”
You can help support the King Middle School Swim Club online.
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