Nancy Lowery keeps a picture in her office to remind her why she does what she does.

The photo was taken 26 years ago on the Fourth of July, when a little boy drowned at Coeur d'Alene City Beach.

"I was there at City Beach with my kids and the whistles blew," she said. "I had learned how to swim and my kids had had swim lessons, but I don’t think I ever really understood the perils of open water until that day. The water was cleared, and of course, as a parent, you’re looking for your children, and once they were all there, there was a relief.

"But then, when you realize that a little boy drowned that day, it was very devastating and I decided at that very moment that I was going to get a lifeguarding certificate because I needed to know, I needed to be prepared for what to do with my own family. Over the years, I’ve worked at other open-water entities and, unfortunately, there’s been two drownings since that day down at City Beach that have both touched my family’s life. My kids, all but one of them, became lifeguards."

Lowery is the aquatics manager at the Kroc Center. She lives to teach others, especially children, the life-saving basic skills of swimming.

"Drowning in this area has unfortunately touched my family more than once," she said. "I’m not ashamed of saying that’s my soapbox. That’s what I want to get out there, that’s what I want to say. Let’s all be prepared. Let’s figure out a way to keep kids from drowning."

The Kroc Center's Third Grade Swim program is a start.

Keeping kids safe in the water

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Idaho has the second-highest unintentional drowning rate in the country for the 1- to 5-year-old age group, with a rate of 6.14 per 100,000 population. Florida is the only state that has more drowning deaths for this age group. Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children between 1 and 14, and about 75 percent of child drownings happen because of a lapse in adult supervision for less than five minutes.

Nine people drown in the United States every day.

"When there’s a death by drowning in your family or somebody that you know, you don't want that to happen," Lowery said. "You don't want anybody to go through that."

In North Idaho, where countless lakes and rivers beckon to outdoors enthusiasts and their families, water safety is imperative. From April to June, the Third Grade Swim program teaches third-graders the basics of staying safe and staying alive.

"We’re teaching them life-saving skills such as floating, breath control, bobbing to safety," Lowery said. "Those are key things — don’t panic, you can roll on your back; float, let the water keep you at the top of the surface; don’t panic, you can call for help; bob to safety. Just being able to put their face in the water and not being afraid, kick forward, those are life-saving skills, not formalized swim strokes."

Aquatic activities coordinator Chris Barry, who shares Lowery's passion for teaching kids about swimming, said the program's safety topics are tailored to the needs of the community.

"We really touch on the lakes and rivers and boating, because that’s what kids are going to be doing in this area," he said. "We also cover ice safety, because during the winter people go ice fishing."

Third Grade Swim

Although the program has existed in some form in the community since at least the 1970s, Lowery and her team at the Kroc really took the reins in 2009. Third Grade Swim provides opportunities for third graders throughout Kootenai County to learn swimming basics. For only $5, students receive four or five days of instruction and an introduction to further lessons and programming at the Kroc Center, including scholarship opportunities.

And, third grade is the perfect time to teach these youngsters the basics; according to Kroc research information, if a person doesn't learn to swim by that age, they probably never will.

"It’s when they can actually handle their bodies and use their minds and totally understand the concepts that you’re teaching them," Lowery said. "It’s a magical age. Within a week we see drastic improvement in their skills."

It's also a time to keep them engaged. Barry has a special way using humor to teach the kids while they're in the pool learning.

"I have a gorilla suit that I put on," he said, cracking a smile. "I named him Captain Safety."

In a gorilla suit, complete with flippers and goggles, "Captain Safety" discusses lessons such as examining a swimming area before jumping in or why it's important to wear a life jacket.

"The kids love that," Barry said. "It really helps drive in the point of the water safety when I wear that."

Lessons also include general pool rules, swimming with a buddy in a supervised area, why "too much sun is no fun," the importance of listening to lifeguards or water guides and much more.

Barry uses another technique to make his aquatic education memorable for the kids during a lesson called "Reach or throw, don't go."

"I’ll fall in fully clothed," he said. "I’ll have somebody pull me in when I’m demonstrating the proper way to rescue someone. And I’ll do it improperly and have them pull me in properly, and the kids love that because they’re not expecting it, and I’ll do that back to back to back."

"He’ll blow dry his hair and put on dry clothes," Lowery said. "I’ll sit in my office and I'll hear this roar of laughter and then you know in a half hour you’re going to hear another roar of laughter because Chris is in the water again. It’s hilarious."

The volunteers and instructors love teaching the kids. But at the end of the day, when the laughter has subsided, Barry knows the message they are sending is real — it sticks and it's something that could change, or save, some of these youths’ lives.

"To be able to teach young kids, it means that I’m able to prevent those accidents from happening and teach them the skills they need to be safe," Barry said. "It allows me that peace of mind to know that I’m doing my part in the community to help provide a water-safe community."

Staying financially afloat

The Third Grade Swim program runs entirely on donations. It serves at least 1,400 students from a variety of public and private schools each season at low or no cost to the families. With transportation fees, lifeguard costs, equipment expenses and everything else, the program costs nearly $50,000 with an individual student cost of $35. Lowery and her colleagues are seeking long-term sponsors and donors who would like to see this growing program continue to succeed.

"It's to help with the scholarship part of things — the cost of making the program available, helping with transportation — and those are the two key things," said Kroc Center executive director Maj. Ben Markham. "It’s expensive to do the program."

Lowery said one recurring and gracious source of funding has been the Ironman Foundation.

"We wrote a grant to the Ironman Foundation, which has been a huge supporter of us," she said. "We’ve been very responsible with the money and have added kids every year. It’s a program that they’re talking about taking to other Ironman communities because they've looked at our successes here. But that doesn’t totally fund it."

Lowery said she knows of other cities in the country where an elementary school swim program is mandated and supported by the community or local government, especially areas that have experienced the tragedy of a child drowning.

"We don’t have that public funding stream," she said. "We don't have the school district funding it, we don’t have our city saying, ‘Here’s some money,’ so how do we fund the program?"

She said her hopes are to secure funding not just this year, but every year.

"I want a way that we can fund this every year, that the money just comes in and the community sees the benefits and that we don’t have drownings, we don’t have that statistic in this community anymore because we have a program that helps prevent that.

"It is heart-wrenching and it is tangible," she said. "Oftentimes, you give your money to different things and you’re not sure what it’s really doing. This is tangible. We watch these kids. These instructors know what happens to a kid who starts out so afraid and by the end, in the play, the last day, they’re playing along with all the other kids. They’re not afraid of getting into that water anymore. They have those skills necessary. That’s huge. It’s tangible. It’s actual. We’re making a difference."

Swimming beyond third grade

While the Third Grade Swim gives third graders an introduction to water safety lessons, kids can start building those skills when they're infants and they can continue when they graduate from the third grade.

Peak Health and Wellness Center in Coeur d'Alene offers swim classes for everyone, from water babies to swimming seniors. Classes include introduction to swim, beginner swim, advanced beginner swim, intermediate swim and advanced swim. Swimmers are placed in each class depending on their age and ability. Prices vary from month to month but are on average between $20 and $50.

The Peak Club Swim program uses continuous enrollment to promote consistency and allow swimmers to build trusting relationships with their instructors.

"It promotes consistency, so they progress a lot better, and each time you’re not trying to re-establish a dynamic for a class," said Peak aquatics director Pepper Root. "Everybody kind of knows what they're good at and what they have to work on and they have the same instructor month after month, so I feel that’s really beneficial."

Root has been a swimmer her entire life. She is a former Kroc lifeguard and aquatic administrative assistant who taught and was active with the Third Grade Swim when she was at the Kroc. As someone who has been water-oriented for so long, she understands the needs for children of all ages to have basic swimming skills.

"I had an instructor who had a child who almost drowned," she said. "Their parents were building a pool and it had a cover in it and he somehow fell down and got under the cover, but because they had practiced back floating and stuff so much, he lay there and floated on his back under the pool mat until someone came and found him. So he survived, he had learned enough skills to save his life."

Aside from safety, Root also knows that swimming is fun and cheap entertainment for those who know how to do it.

"They can go out to the lake once they get good. They’re not restricted to what they can and can’t do in a pool once they can support themselves well," she said. "I know the Third Grade swim focuses on third graders, but I try to get them as many swim skills as they can starting when they’re little, just because you never know, especially living in this area. People boat and go out to the lake, so it’s a safety thing, but in the long run, it’s going to benefit them."

To donate, volunteer or learn more about the Third Grade Swim program, email Christy Markham, Kroc Center marketing and development director, at christy.markham@usw.salvationarmy.org or call 667-1865.

To learn more about the Peak Swim Club, contact Root at pepperr@thepeakid.com or 667-2582 ext. 113.