aquatics renaissance The parent is bound to teach their children a craft. Some say, also to teach them to swim. —B. Talmud, Kiddushin 29a
Rebirth of the Pool When Olympic champ Lenny Krayzelburg approached Executive Director Brian Greene with a proposition to open a new swim school at the Westside JCC, Greene had nothing to lose. The JCCs of greater Los Angeles were restructuring, and Westside was partially shut down. The pool itself was closed, and Greene, anxious to open it up again, was receptive to any plan, especially one coming from the well-known, world-class swimmer who had spent his early years—after emigrating to America from Ukraine at age ten—swimming in the Westside JCC pool. But his expectations were modest. “When our pool had been open in earlier years, we used to have two or three hundred kids taking swimming lessons, and I thought to myself, ‘Boy, if we could get back to those glory days, that would be wonderful.’ And then Lenny presented us with a business plan that said he was going to have four or five hundred students within a year, and we all thought, hey, it’s great that he wants to be optimistic, but this is ridiculous! We figured if he achieved half of what he wanted to do, that would be great for us.” Within months, Lenny had 750 students taking lessons at Westside—each week. That was four years ago. The program’s success led to the pool being shut down again—this time for an expansion. Westside recently opened its new Harry & Jeannette Weinberg Aquatics Center, a $4.5 million, state-of-the-art swimming facility created through the generosity of major gifts from the Weinberg Foundation and others. The JCC now averages 1,250 students taking weekly swim lessons, with a peak of 1,400 in the summer months. Revenue coming to the JCC from the swim academy has grown accordingly. “It’s even more profitable now, especially with the new facility. It’s become a very key part of our operating revenue,” says Greene. “The Lenny K Swim Academy initialized the revitalization of our Center.”
Brighton Beach Memoir More than just a continent separates Los Angeles’ Westside JCC from the Shorefront YMYWHA in Brooklyn, New York. Shorefront serves the communities of Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, home to a large concentration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Shorefront provides social services to this population, and works to integrate them into American society—in the settlement-house tradition of the first JCCs—while reconnecting them to their Jewish roots.
Within months, Lenny had 750 students taking lessons at the Westside JCC ...each week. 6
Shorefront also had a functioning—and busy— pool, when they decided to bring in the Lenny K JCC Swim Academy. “We already had swim instruction,” says Executive Director Sue Fox. “We had swim classes, junior swim team, senior swim team, and lap swimmers. We were already making money from our swim instruction.” So why make the change? “We were looking to strengthen our program to teach children swimming, and to reach out to
Hands-on training and low instructor-to-student ratios are key elements of the SwimRight method’s success. new families,” says Fox. “The Swim Academy really is bringing a great new resource here.” Shorefront pins its success on adapting to its neighborhood’s patterns of growth and initiating programming that is valuable for its members. Fox saw in the Lenny K Swim Academy an opportunity to reach out to the more affluent members of the community, those who were not drawn to the Y for social services. “Lenny Krayzelburg is a known name to everybody in the Russian Jewish world. He’s one of their heroes.” The program only opened mid-June, but Shorefont is already planning ways to expand its Lenny K swim programming, expanding it into summer camp and preschool programming.
Making New Friends: A Crossover Hit Not only has the Lenny Krayzelburg JCC Swim Academy rejuvenated Westside’s pool and brought a new standard of programming excellence to Shorefront, it’s also been responsible for a lot of crossover at both JCCs, as families attracted initially by the swim lessons discover and take part in other JCC offerings. “We are seeing cross-enrollment all the time,” says Greene. “Families coming in for a swim lesson hear about our preschool, and discover our teen program. Children who are taking swimming are also taking gymnastics classes, etc.” At Shorefront, Fox finds that new people drawn to the JCC for the first time because of the Swim Academy are getting involved in other family programming.
What’s the Secret? What’s so different about the Lenny K Swim Academy? How does it grow so quickly, bring new families to the pool, and on to other parts of the JCC? The answer lies in the SwimRight Method, the academy’s unique teaching curriculum. “We have a very precise teaching style,” Krayzelburg says. “We follow a clear progression, beginning with getting a child comfortable in the water, floating on their back, and getting a good sense of their surroundings in the water. We’re very hands-on—every instructor is required to be in the pool with the kids, and we have a four-to-one ratio of students to instructors, so kids get more individual attention.” As children learn, they progress through different levels that are broken down into individual skills. Parents are given a sticker book detailing the goals of each level of instruction, with every skill spelled out clearly. When children achieve a goal, they are given a sticker for the book.
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