Baldwin teen inspired by family drownings starts swim lesson scholarship program

A Baldwin High School student is helping local children access swim lessons after two drownings in his family contributed to generations of fear around the water.

Jace Owens, a 16-year-old junior, partnered with the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation to provide swim lesson scholarships to two students from his former elementary school in Baldwin this summer. He hopes to expand the effort to other schools in the district but is first focusing on Baldwin, where there is no public pool, he said.

More than 4,000 people die from unintentional drowning every year in the United States, and drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 5 to 14, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Owens’ family has a personal connection to drowning, said his mother, Natasha Owens. After her great-uncle drowned, Natasha said, her grandmother never taught her children to swim, including Natasha’s mother.

Then, Natasha’s mother lost her brother to drowning, a second death in the family that contributed to a fear of water and a cycle in which several family members did not learn to swim, including Natasha, she said. Jace began breaking that cycle after hearing stories from his late grandmother, with whom he was close.

"When my mother saw [Jace] swimming for the first time, she actually became emotional because she couldn’t believe someone in our family could maneuver in the water so well," Natasha Owens said. "Since my grandmother lost her brother to a drowning incident, none of her children learned how to swim, and neither did my brother and I," she said.

Baldwin is a predominantly Black and Hispanic community, with 45.6% of residents identifying as Black and 23.3% as Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationally, drowning risk and access to swimming instruction differ along racial and ethnic lines.

Among people under 30, drowning death rates for Black people are 1.5 times higher than for white people, rising to 2.6 times among Black children ages 5 to 9 and 3.6 times among those ages 10 to 14, according to the CDC. Swimming lesson participation also varies by race and ethnicity: 72% of Hispanic adults and 63% of Black adults reported never taking a lesson, compared with 48% of white adults, according to the CDC.

The agency says those disparities may be influenced by the cost and availability of lessons, fear of water, whether swimming environments feel welcoming and the legacy of racial discrimination in access to public pools.

Formal swimming lessons were associated with an 88% reduction in drowning risk among young children in a 2009 study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Owens, who is a competitive swimmer and lifeguard, has volunteered to teach children at multiple pools on Long Island.

Kim and Stew Leonard Jr. lost their 21-month-old son, Stew Leonard III, after he drowned in a pool while the family was on vacation. They started the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation in 1990, and it has since raised $6 million to fund free or low-cost swim lessons, according to its website.

When Owens approached the foundation with the idea to help children in Baldwin, "it was a no-brainer," said Ryann Leonard, executive director of the foundation and a daughter of Stew Leonard Jr.

Bringing swim lessons to Baldwin

Students at Lenox Elementary School submitted essays to be considered for the two scholarships. Principal Sheilah Jefferson-Isaac chose the recipients because the students took initiative and were passionate about the opportunity, she said. The Town of Hempstead has several public pools, Jefferson-Isaac said, but Baldwin itself does not. She said the distance may discourage some families from seeking out lessons, particularly affordable ones.

"Without an incentive, maybe it was something that would not have been on their radar this summer, but this definitely was something that offered a great opportunity and incentive," Jefferson-Isaac said.

Maria Fernandez, 8, wrote about her uncle who had a near-drowning experience in the ocean while on vacation a few months earlier. After Maria won a scholarship, her mother, Chrisoula Fernandez, said she signed up her other daughter for the same swim program.

"I've lived here my whole life, and I don't really know much about stuff that's available to the kids and [the lessons] being at a lower cost," said Chrisoula Fernandez, of Baldwin. "If I didn't look into it because of this, I would have assumed swim lessons are so expensive," she said.

Celine Fernandez, 8, also received a scholarship for swim lessons this summer. In her essay, Celine said she wanted to improve her swimming skills so she could help her 3-year-old brother during an emergency in the water, said her mother, Caroline Fernandez.

After five weeks of lessons, Celine moved from Level 2 to Level 3, her mother said.

"It's really fun, and I think I'm not so scared of the water anymore," Celine said. "I feel more comfortable."

Celine took swim lessons at a private facility when she was a toddler, but her family stopped the lessons because of the cost, Caroline Fernandez said. She said the facility was not open for use outside of the lessons.

At Veterans Memorial Park Pool in East Meadow, where the lessons take place and Owens works as a lifeguard, the pool is open to the public.

"Where we are taking her now, I can go in the water, my son can go in the water, it's not restricted," Caroline Fernandez said.

The cost of learning to swim

The Stew Leonard III foundation operates Stewie the Duck Swim School locations in Connecticut and New Jersey. Weekly group lessons cost $36-$38 per class, while intensive, weeklong summertime programs cost $180-$190 per week, plus a $25-$30 annual registration fee, according to the foundation’s website.

Revenue from the nonprofit swim school supports free-lesson programs at participating schools, Ryann Leonard said. She said the foundation has funded 40,000 free lessons through those proceeds. 

The scholarships provide each swimmer six lessons over the course of three weeks, with classes meeting twice per week. Jace’s sponsorship request for both children was $336, which includes $4 daily admission fees and the cost of each lesson, paid by the foundation in full, a spokesperson from the foundation said.

At Saf-T-Swim, a swim school with 13 locations across Queens and Long Island, classes range from $35-$43 for a group lesson to $70-$90 per private lesson, plus a $50 annual service fee.

The foundation encourages parents to start lessons when their children are 6 months old.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 1 to 4, according to the CDC.

Water safety skills are important for everyone, not just children. Jace Owens said some teenagers his age in the community are afraid of the water.

"No one is really ever considered water-safe because of the fact that anything can occur at any time," said Lauren Moder, general manager of the Melville Saf-T-Swim location.

"Swimming is something you need to do year-round," Moder said, because taking lessons in the few months before summer "is not going to teach your child how to swim."

Owens said he chose the Stew Leonard III foundation because of its focus on promoting water safety. He hopes the two scholarships are only a starting point.

"I started off small, and I have huge hopes for expanding in the future," he said. "The fact that the two kids that were involved really benefited from the lessons, and just seeing them be able to enjoy swimming in this way, the payoff just feels really worth it."

In the future, Owens hopes to provide two children from each school in the district with a swim lesson scholarship.

"Then, we can potentially reach higher if that does well after the success of the current attempt," Owens said.