A team of students and others at Laurentian University is bringing the fun and excitement of swimming to children with disabilities.
The organization is SWAM Sudbury, which stands for Swimming With A Mission. Every Sunday, the team gathers at the YMCA of Northeastern Ontario pool in downtown Sudbury where they provide free swimming lessons for young people with a variety of disabilities.
One of the volunteers is Joe Colasimone, a nursing student at LU, who said the SWAM group had been in place for several years but was shut down due to COVID-19 and then the CCAA (Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act) financial restructuring at the university.
Colasimone said the group was revived in 2023 with a new team of volunteers. He said with the Laurentian swimming pool shut down during COVID and CCAA, the group was pleased to find a new home at the YMCA pool.
"We started our first new round of lessons in September of 2023 and we've been going hard ever since," he said.
Colasimone remarked that reviving the program was the right thing to do, he said, based on input from the parents. He said many children who began their swimming lessons prior to 2020 have come back and the parents are pleased and grateful.
"Our whole mission is we kind of want to decrease the barrier to children getting access to swimming lessons," he said.
Colasimone said it is important to keep the cost reasonable.
"Everything nowadays is very expensive, so we only charge a family $25 for eight 30-minute swim lessons, and if the family can't afford it, then we do our own private fundraising, and we just waive the fee," he said.
"All of our people are volunteers, so none of us actually get paid."
He said the mission is a non-profit initiative aimed at providing an affordable service to families.
The actual swimming program is accepting of all children from ages three to 17 with one-on-one instruction provided by the trained volunteers. He said the program is safety oriented and lifeguards are on duty.
"We train our instructors how to give swimming lessons and more of it is along the lines of swimming to survive, learning to tread water, having fun in the water, enjoying the water and not being scared of the water," said Colasimone.
He added that many of the instructors are students in health sciences, such as nursing and medical students. He said that helps for teaching students with various conditions.
"So not only do we teach children with physical disabilities, but we also teach children with cognitive disabilities," he said. "[And] we have a lot of children with autism, ADHD, impulsive thoughts, and then also, on the disability front, you know, some neuromuscular disorders or some movement disorders, if you will, but it definitely does pose a little bit of a challenge," he said.
Colasimone said the YMCA pool has all the necessary equipment and floatation devices to help the children learn and to improve their range of motion in the water.
He said it is important for the children to become confident and understand the need for safety, especially since so many Northern families have camps and access to lakes and bodies of water where people can swim.
As successful as the SWAM Sudbury program is, Colasimone said the organization can always use more volunteers.
"I think for us, we're always actively looking for more volunteers that don't necessarily have to be Laurentian students. We're open to all, everybody who kind of wants to help our mission," he said.
He added that anyone who likes the program can always make a donation in support of the program or become a sponsor, because he said everyone regardless of disability should be able to enjoy activities such as swimming.
Len Gillis is a reporter at Sudbury.com.
