ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Audrey Jimenez, the executive director of the Lynn YMCA, talks to students at Breed Middle School about water safety.
BY DILLON DURST
LYNN — Breed Middle School students pledged to never swim alone, stay in marked areas with a lifeguard present and only get in the water if they can see bottom.
Audrey Jimenez, YMCA executive director, spoke to students Monday about the importance of water safety. She said the school asked her to talk with students after 13-year-old Breed student Jose Angel Capellan Rodriguez drowned last week while swimming with friends in Walden Pond at Lynn Woods Reservation.
“It’s extremely timely,” Jimenez said of Monday’s assembly. “I think everyone’s really been affected by it.”
Despite the city’s waterfront location, Jimenez said there’s a lack of water safety knowledge.
Nearly 70 percent of African American and 58 percent of Hispanic children reported they can’t swim, compared to 42 percent of white children, according to a 2010 national study by the USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis.
Jimenez said while parents teach their children to be safe and healthy, water safety is not included.
This summer, the Y is offering free swimming lessons to Breed students entering the eighth grade. The program also teaches parents the importance of water safety skills.
The Y also provides parent-child, preschool, youth, adult and private swim classes.
Jimenez said she’s trying to figure out a way to make free lessons available to more children.
Lynn Public Schools and the Y will host a one-hour presentation on safety around water tonight at Breed at 6 p.m.
Dillon Durst can be reached at [email protected].