By Andrew Jovanovic, Swimming World College Intern
On June 13, Jessica Hardy represented USA Swimming Foundation’s Make A Splash Tour at High Ridge YMCA in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the north-side of Chicago. The tour’s main focus is reaching ethnically diverse communities to promote interest in swimming lessons and combatting the drowning epidemic the nation faces each year.
Rogers Park, located on the north side of Chicago, is one of the most diverse areas in both the city and the nation. There are approximately 63,000 residents speaking 80 different languages in 1.8 square miles.
“One of the biggest impacts of this program was having an Olympian come into THIS community, a community that doesn’t have that many people swimming and it’s not part of the [previous] culture here,” said 46-year-old Malcolm Rogers, a Chicago-native from Rogers Park and works at the High Ridge YMCA.
Photo Courtesy: Andrew Jovanovic
“I think the greatest impact today with this event was having people not only in the water and experiencing it, but also understanding how to use the water purposefully,” Rogers said.
There were new faces, mixed with former and future swimmers, ranging from all ages in attendance. Some of the younger ones braving the water for the first time may come to regret crying in the arms of an Olympian when pictures surface in the years to come.
Photo Courtesy: Andrew Jovanovic
High-Ridge YMCA’s aquatic director Alexis Seeger saw many new faces at the pool that Saturday.
“We serve 127 nationalities so our events are very hit or miss, either a huge turnout or not very many people, but [today] we have a lot of new faces and a lot of them are not participants in our program,” Seeger said. “But just getting 5-10 minutes in the water can make such a huge difference for them.”
The common theme of the day taken from swimmers, parents, and patrons, was the effect of having such a decorated swimmer to look up to. Even though the true amount of summer enrollments will be assessed when public pools close in September, a huge impact was made on the kids who came to the Tour and met an Olympian.
Photo Courtesy: Andrew Jovanovic
It was her second stop on the tour after a pool visit earlier in the day, but Hardy continued to smile as she signed over 100 autographs and took dozens of pictures with wide-eyed future swimmers.
“The coolest moment of today was seeing kids who were petrified of the water transfer that fear into having fun,” Hardy said. “But that fear is real and genuine; transforming that fear into having fun and being safe is what this is all about.”