STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — Just days after a 9-year-old drowned in an apartment pool, there's a renewed push to teach more kids how to swim.
According to the USA Swimming Foundation, 70 percent of black children and 60 percent of Latino children can't swim.
Now, metro groups are working to change that.
"Exposure is everything," said Melissa Wilborn, director at DeKalb Aquatics Tiger Swim School. "If they're not exposed to it, or they don't have the resources to do it, there's no way they're going to learn how to swim."
Wilborn has partnered with the USA Swimming Foundation, whose goal nationwide is to get more kids swimming to save lives.
"Every time I turn on the news and I see a kid drown, I cringe because it's absolutely preventable," Wilborn said.
Channel 2's Erin Coleman caught up with Wilborn at her community pool in Stone Mountain while she was teaching 8-year-old Jamie Vital how to swim.
"Well, I didn't have that much confidence as I have now," Vital said.
According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black children between the ages of 4-14 are three times as likely to drown as white children.
Last week 9-year-old Jaricus Wyatt drowned at an apartment swimming pool in East Point, one day before his 10th birthday. His family and the entire community were devastated.
"It breaks my heart, it actually breaks my heart. It makes me want to do more," Wilborn said.
Which is why she's made it her mission to teach children regardless of whether they can afford lessons or not.
"We do lessons where we have kids that can't pay, all the way up to kids that pay for private lessons," she said. "We have to break that cycle where if (parents) can't swim, my kids can't swim -- we have to get out of that mode."
In the coming weeks, Wilborn's group will be working out of a new indoor facility to be able to offer more lessons for kids who might not otherwise be able to afford it.