Latest news with #InternationalWaterSafetyDay
Associated Press
29-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Duke Energy Foundation, City of New Port Richey Team Up for Summer Swim Safety
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla., May 29, 2025 /3BL/ - In recognition of the May 15 designation as International Water Safety Day, Duke Energy Foundation announces a grant to the City of New Port Richey for swim lessons and summer camp scholarships. 'Safety is central to how we operate at Duke Energy. Providing water safety education through swim lessons is a fun but important way to keep children in our community safe this summer,' said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. 'We thank the City of New Port Richey for providing programming to families throughout the year and are happy to make these programs available to more children this summer.' The City of New Port Richey is offering summer day camp to residents June 2-Aug. 8 this summer. Registration is available by calling the Recreation and Aquatic Center at 727.841.4560 or visiting Limited spots are still available. 'We're incredibly grateful to Duke Energy Foundation for supporting our efforts to keep kids safe and active all summer long,' said Kevin Trapp, assistant parks and recreation director. 'This funding helps remove barriers for families and ensures more children can enjoy swim lessons and camp experiences that build confidence and lifelong safety skills.' Below are the top water safety tips from the American Red Cross, as an important reminder to all of us, on how to keep yourself, your family and friends safe in and around the water every day. For more information on water safety, please visit American Red Cross' water safety resources here. Duke Energy Foundation Duke Energy Foundation provides more than $30 million annually in philanthropic support to meet the needs of communities where Duke Energy customers live and work. The Foundation is funded by Duke Energy shareholders. Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America's largest energy holding companies. The company's electric utilities serve 8.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 55,100 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas utilities serve 1.7 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. About Duke Energy FloridaDuke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 12,500 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 2 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida. About City of New Port Richey: With a strong local government, an attractive historical downtown, and a unique riverfront landscape, New Port Richey is one of Florida's best walkable, waterfront, historic hometowns. For more information, visit Media contact: Laitin SterlingMedia line: 800.559.3853 View original content here. Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from Duke Energy Corporation
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bronx school partners with Olympic medalists for water safety day
NEW YORK (PIX11) — As the weather warms up, water safety becomes even more important for Bronx children, especially those living near the Bronx River. This week, students at P.S. 66 learned just how vital a few simple skills can be in keeping them safe all summer long. More Lottery News Stacey Adams, assistant principal at P.S. 66, knows firsthand the risks the nearby river can pose. 'We've had many over the years, many individuals fall in. Some have unfortunately perished,' Adams shared. For her, the Bronx River is both a natural treasure and a source of concern for the school community. 'Swim safety is very important, especially with our proximity to the Bronx River,' she said. The Bronx River has seen decades of environmental challenges and community efforts to reclaim it as a safe, accessible green space for local residents. While the area around the river now features parks and places to play, Adams says the water can still be dangerous, especially for children who live nearby. That's why this year's International Water Safety Day event at P.S. 66 was so meaningful for its second graders. In partnership with Asphalt Green and USA Swimming, Olympic medalists Cullen Jones and Janelle Atkinson led a 45-minute water safety assembly for more than 500 students. 'This month becomes very depressing because I get text messages and messages on social about kids and adults drowning,' said Jones, who is passionate about swim safety education. The Olympians shared their expertise and excitement for swimming, teaching student's essential skills that could one day save lives. 'We do have an answer to drowning and that's swim lessons. A child is 88 percent safer around the water just by having swim lessons,' Jones explained. For Adams, the lessons went beyond just swimming, and her message to families is clear, 'Don't be scared to get your kids in the water, and get lessons because knowing how to swim is the difference between life and death.' For more information on swim lessons, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
15-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Olympian Simone Manuel faced questions as a Black swimmer. Her journey is helping others
Olympian Simone Manuel faced questions as a Black swimmer. Her journey is helping others Show Caption Hide Caption Watch Tori Penso share the toughest situation as a soccer referee Tori Penso knows it's tough to be a referee in soccer, and shares how she deals with it as a woman in a male soccer league. Sports Seriously Simone Manuel will be at the grocery store, and someone might stop her and ask: "What sport do you do?" 'Sometimes I entertain them a little bit and I let them guess,' she says with a slight laugh, 'and swimming is never their guess. When I end up telling them I swim, I kind of get some crazy eyes. I've gotten laughed at. I've gotten, 'There's no way that you're a good swimmer,' even though they look at my build.' "Actually," she will tell them, "I've won Olympic medals." Manuel was 20 in 2016 when she became the first Black woman to win an individual gold at Olympic swimming. Nearly 10 years later, she sometimes still feels dragged down by the heft and responsibility of the moment, and she still faces the stereotypes that are assigned to her race and sport. "The most common one is that Black people can't swim," Manuel tells USA TODAY Sports. "I still hear that to this day, unfortunately. I've gotten comments from the Black community as well that we can't swim." Manuel, 28, has won seven Olympic and 16 world championship swimming medals. She is seeking more, but spoke of another opportunity ahead of International Water Safety Day on Wednesday. In 2023, Manuel launched the Simone Manuel Foundation, with a goal of increasing opportunities and water safety in communities of color. "It's about bringing swimming into spaces where people may not feel like they're welcome, or they may not even feel like it's an avenue for them to pursue,' she says. According to a report by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released last May, nearly 64% of Black children have little to no swimming ability. The statistic is decades in the making, reflecting America's long history of racial intolerance at pools that conflicted a little girl in Sugar Land, Texas. "I began to question if swimming was the sport for me,' Manuel says. She shared how getting her mind around her identity within her sports was a process filled with doubt. But she has acquired lessons from an often-excruciating athletic journey that might help parents and young athletes. (Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.) Validating emotions can build a stronger athlete Manuel tried other sports, but something came alive inside of her when she got in the pool. The water not only cooled her from the sweltering Texas heat, but filled her with confidence, pushing her up into training groups with older swimmers. Then a voice in her head told her she should quit. Sharron and Marc Manuel helped their daughter understand what she was hearing. Sharron also would scroll the Internet with her young daughter, pulling up photos of past Black swimming champions like Olympic silver medalist Maritza Correia McClendon. USA TODAY: How did your parents support you in swimming? Simone Manuel: I think the biggest tangible thing was just continuing to allow me to be authentically myself, to continue to validate my experiences as a Black woman in this sport. Being one of a few is a really tough journey, and I know that as parents, they dealt with their own experiences and they were able to recognize that my journey was gonna be unlike other swimmers' just because of, unfortunately, the color of my skin. So a lot of their support came from encouraging me. When I would come home from practice and tell them, "Oh, someone said this," or, "This happened,' that alone helped me feel empowered. It allowed me to (feel) that I wasn't crazy, that what I was experiencing was real, but then to use that as motivation to continue to fight for my goals and dreams. Sports unify the world, but often isolate the athlete When you swim, you spend a lot of time by yourself in the water, propelling toward the wall and not knowing if you will get there first. After Manuel touched the wall in Rio in 2016 to win the 100-meter freestyle, she realized how solitary a sport it can be. USAT: You have felt pressure to be an example. Can you expand on that? SM: I found out that I made history when I did the interview. At that moment, I just was trying to win a medal, but then for that moment to be really historic, nobody can prepare you for that. I think it was, in some sense, a heavy weight that I wasn't prepared for. It's not like I dive in a pool every day and I'm like, "I want to be the best Black swimmer.' I want to be the best swimmer that I can be. I can inspire my community (and) people beyond my community who may not feel like they fit into whatever particular endeavor that they want to pursue, but there is pressure that comes with it. I have learned that I will be my best when I focus on trying to be the best Simone, and that comes with my competition, with my advocacy. And the rest, even if it feels lonely at times, it's really important for me to just try to stay true to myself. It's really important for me to continue to compete and do what I love to do, because hopefully there's a young Black child watching me on TV, and they look at the screen and they say, 'Hey mom, hey dad, I want to learn how to swim too.' Again, a supportive family can make all the difference. Manuel's older brothers played college basketball, Chris at Oklahoma Christian and Ryan at SMU. 'They always would encourage me,' she says. 'They would ask me to come out and play, but they would show no mercy (laughs), and I appreciated that. I didn't need them to take it easy on me. I had to take a couple of elbows and maybe lose by 20 points. But I mean, beyond that, they're like my biggest supporters. 'At the end of the day, I'm just their little sister. It reminds me that I am a swimmer, but it's not who I completely am.' It takes courage to believe in yourself when you don't fit the mold Public pools dominated the American landscape for much of the 20th Century. These could be intimate spaces shared by friends and competitors, but also ones charged with racial strife. Federal judges began declaring pool segregation unconstitutional before the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, but waves of American communities pushed back in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead of complying with desegregation, they closed pools, affecting generations of potential Black swimmers. 'And then on top of that, you have the rise of private pools, country clubs, people no longer going to public pools and having the access,' Manuel says. 'The accessibility to backyard pools, in the Black community, is not something that we typically had in the past. Discrimination and racism have created these consequences.' USAT: What was it like growing up in a primarily white sport? SM: I didn't feel like I fit in. I think it's kind of normal to, at a young age, look around and not see other people that look like you. I don't see any other Black children doing this, but when I'm on the soccer field, I see them. When I'm on the volleyball court, I see them. When I play basketball, I see them. So I really began to question if it was a sport group that I could be good at and successful in. But I think on top of that, just some of the experiences, some of the comments from teammates, parents, that make you doubt yourself, tacked on with what you're already feeling, makes it very difficult to feel like the pool is a welcoming space. I had supportive coaches who helped a lot with that. I learned that it was really important for me to own my dream, and that, unfortunately, this was a journey that I was going to have to go on. I was going to have to deal with these obstacles. We all do in life, and this was one of them that I had to hopefully conquer. USAT: What would you say to young swimmers who look up to you? SM: Believe in the power of your dreams. Believe in yourself and don't let anyone keep you from pursuing your passion, because if it's yours, it's for you, and it's not for them to take. 'Drowning epidemic': Swimming can help shed stereotypes Recent CDC data indicates Black children ages 10-14 drown in swimming pools at a rate that is almost eight times higher than white children. "So many people are so terrified of the water," said Naji Ali, a long-distance swimmer who has hosted a podcast promoting swimming in the Black community. He spoke as a featured voice for a 2021 Philadelphia museum exhibit known as 'Pool: A Social History of Segregation.' 'Whether you go in or not, you should know how to swim," he said. "And not just survival swimming, I'm talking where you are comfortable in the water.' The Simone Manuel Foundation seeks better education – through water safety awareness workshops, swim lessons, clinics - in BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) communities. And it offers possibility. USAT: What message do you want to share about the work that you're doing? SM: It would be great to see other Black swimmers on the podium. I don't know if I will see that in my lifetime. But above that, I think it's really about empowering the Black community to learn how to swim, because the drowning epidemic is so staggering. USAT: What has sports done for you and for your life? SM: Sports has allowed me to grow into a stronger, more resilient person. It's given me some of my greatest achievements, but also some of my lowest lows. Sports (is) a microcosm of society, it's a microcosm of life, and the experiences that I've had through have helped me handle difficult situations. I believe that swimming has really given me all the tools to be able to handle whatever comes my way. Coach Steve: What the brash ex-swimmer learned about his career when he lost everything Sports careers often remain 'unfinished,' no matter who we are Manuel says that before Rio, she faced undisclosed 'major health issues' that forced her to significantly modify her training. "There were times where I didn't think I could go any further,' she says. Before Tokyo, she developed overtraining syndrome. She spent six months out of the water recovering from mental and physical exhaustion, depression, anxiety, soreness and other symptoms. She returned to win a bronze in Tokyo and a silver in Paris. She has described her career since Rio as not a comeback but unfinished, a perspective on how sports continue to teach throughout athletes' lives. USAT: You're hoping to compete in Los Angeles in 2028. How is that going? SM: It's probably been the hardest training that I've ever done in my career, but it's been really fun. I'm really excited what hopefully the next four years has to come. My goal is always to win medals. I'm never been someone that sets low goals. But I also think it's really important to be realistic. The last couple years have been really tough for me, so I just want to continue to improve, not put too much pressure on myself, and just see where my results land, and then adjust from there. So it's hard to kind of give a definitive goal when something is four years away. I ultimately see my best results staying in the present. USAT: You said your goal is to be able to compete without the weight of expectations. Do you think you've gotten to that point yet? SM: No, I haven't, unfortunately, I feel like I'm getting there. I'm starting to learn how to swim more for me. I do think it is gonna take some more work on my part, but expectations are good. Hopefully I continue to become more confident in what I've accomplished and what my resume says about me, that I can just step up on the blocks and not feel like I have to prove anything. Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
