Free swimming sessions for children return to Scarborough today.
The costs for Scarborough SwimSafe are covered by a local charity set up in the name of a man who tragically drowned trying to save his dog's life, ten years ago.
Donna Loveland is chair of the Andrew McGeown Legacy Fund:
"We fundraise all year, and also we're lucky enough that people support us, like local swimming clubs, local companies, so we do get funds donated as well to enable us to put it on for free. It is because obviously in a town like Scarborough, you have areas where there is children that can't afford as much as some of the others, so it just means that everybody can get involved and 25 meters at the end of the day is only one length of the swimming pool.
"So it's not actually really that far, but everyone's benefiting from the skills that the children can learn. They learn about the beach environment, what all the flags mean, who the lifeguards are. They learn what to do If they saw somebody that was in danger or they saw something that wasn't quite right."
The sessions, near the North Bay Lifeguard centre, run from 11am until 3pm and are free for children aged between 7 and 14, who can swim 25 metres. The daily sessions end on Wednesday 13 August.
Donna says there's lots that the youngsters can learn:
"They learn how to survive if they got into danger, what to do, how to stay calm, how to float. But we make it fun so it's not like serious, so that if something did happen, then you know, they're thinking about things and it may save their life one day.
"We've educated, probably just short of 9,000 kids in the time that we've been running the sessions. Most kids learn to swim in a swimming pool, which is a completely different environment.
"And because we're doing it from the beach, obviously the water's cold. There's all the elements that are completely different. So it's major life skills. It's things that they'll never pick up when they're swimming in a pool."
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