Wanda Butts dropped the phone and screamed when she heard the news that her son was dead.
Josh had drowned while rafting on a lake with friends. The 16-year-old didn’t know how to swim, and didn’t wear a life jacket.
“I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it: my son had drowned and he was gone,” she said, recalling the 2006 tragedy.
Butts had worried about her son’s safety when it came to street violence or driving, and she said she had always warned him of those dangers. But water accidents never crossed her mind.
“It did not occur to me that my son would drown because he didn’t know water safety,” she said. “Josh was never taught the basic life skill of learning how to swim.”
Butts’ son Josh was not alone in the Black community. According to USA Swimming, 70 percent of African-American children cannot swim, compared with nearly 60 percent for Hispanic children and 42 percent for white children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American children between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than white children in the same age range.
As Butts tried to make sense of her son’s tragedy, she realized she had passed her own inexperience to her son. Her father had witnessed a drowning when he was young and instilled in her a fear of water.
“So as a child, I never went around water,” said Butts, 58. “I never went swimming. I didn’t know anything about water or life jackets and water safety.”
Because of this fear, Butts raised Josh without any exposure to water. But today, she is determined to prevent other mothers from doing the same. In 2007, she started the Josh Project, a nonprofit that provides low-cost swimming lessons for children in Toledo, Ohio.
“After losing my son, I wanted to do something to help other people, to help another mother not have to suffer the way I do every day from the loss of a child drowning,” she said.
To date, the Josh Project has helped more than 1,000 children learn how to swim.
In Indianapolis, several organizations offer swimming classes and safety programs.
“Swimming is important because it can become a lifelong activity, and it is another way to show kids how to be healthy and safe,” said Eric Reed, unit director at the Wheeler-Dowe Boys & Girls Club, which offers both lessons and recreational swimming. “Many kids in the African-American community are afraid of water. So we want to not only eliminate that fear, but also teach them how to swim and know what to do around water.”
More parents are recommending swimming as an outlet for both character development and recreation. Local resident Heather Scaife has proudly watched her son Brent win many honors as a star high school swimmer.
“There are so many benefits to swimming,” Scaife said. “It helps you learn how to hold yourself accountable because it is an independent sport. All of my sons really enjoy it.”
Brent Scaife, a junior at Monrovia Junior-Senior High School, has successfully competed in state swimming championships and participated in several state and national camps. He plans to attend college and be part of the U.S. swimming team for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
“I like everything about swimming,” said Brent, who has been swimming competitively since age eight. “It’s like home for me. I love the racing, being at the important events and you don’t see too many African-Americans in the sport, so this allows me to make a statement and show that we can swim and get good rankings.”
For some families today, it’s still tough to find an accessible pool.
“The public pools near our home have been closed in the past, and other places were not affordable,” said Lisa Haynes, whose 14-year-old son, Joshua, is one of 60-plus students in the Josh Project this season.
“I am less worried if (Joshua) is near water because he has the basics of how to swim,” Haynes said. “And we’re thankful for that.”
Butts is doing much more, however, than just providing swimming lessons.
“She ups the awareness, and that is half the battle,” said Shaun Anderson, a swimming coach who was so inspired by her story that he created a Josh Project swimming program at Norfolk State University in Virginia. “Once these communities learn how to swim, they will pass it down, which results in future generations that know how to swim.”
Butts said she has two goals for the future: One is to change the drowning statistics of minority children, and the other is to have an aquatic center where the children can swim daily instead of just once a week.
“The joy on the faces of those children – when they see that they can learn, once they get it – they are so happy with themselves,” she said. “And it’s like all of them are my children. It’s like I didn’t lose my son.”
Lan Trinh writes for CNN.
Did you know?
– 70 percent of Black children cannot swim.
– Black kids between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than their white counterparts.
