Denean Johnson
Tampa, FL (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal
Sit or Swim
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Startup
Location:
Tampa
Industry:
Non Profit
Year Founded:
2019
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Business Stage:
Creation/Idea
Entity Type:
Nonprofit Corporation
Description:
Sit & Swim is a Non-Profit Company for Youth, which provides programs and services which surround teaching and training minority and low income youth lifesaving skills. Our goals encompass; saving lives and offering the tools & training to our youth to save others by becoming a lifeguard, swim instructor or baby sitter. We are passionate about helping those in and around our community with life-saving skills that can be used in or out of the water.
The Mission of Sit & Swim is to provide minority & low-income youth the ability and opportunity to enrich their lives and those within their community and beyond, through the study and performance of American Red Cross skills. Our focus is to provide communities with the ability to decrease the overall drowning statistics & increase youth opportunities; by educating, empowering and inspiring our youth to ultimately help save lives. Our non-profit organization is looking to provide an array of youths (ages 11-24) an opportunity to receive training & mentorship to achieve an American Red Cross certification in: Babysitting, CPR/FA/AED, Lifeguard or Swim Instruction. All of our participants will be guided & mentored to ultimately obtain the skills to thereafter use towards an apprentice program as an: EMT, Childcare Worker or Recreation Worker.
Within our first year our goal is to train & certify 36 Babysitters, 35 lifeguards, 36 in CPR/FA/AED & 35 Swim instructors; totaling 142 youth. In addition we will offer 640 hours of swimming lessons to any of our participants who are either (1) unable to swim or (2) unable to complete the swimming requirements for a lifeguard or swim instructor.
Sit & Swim’s goal is that with the success of this program our organization can help contribute to reducing the number of drowning statistics through our training of low-income & minority youth who would otherwise not be able to afford this training. In addition, we intend to expand on the training we provide and offer swim lessons to any youth/family that is unable to afford this life-saving skill.
In 2021 the state of Florida continued to show that many of its counties continued to have an increase in drownings within: Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Pinellas & in Lee counties. The NDPA, (National Drowning Prevention Alliance), listed Florida as 2nd amongst all other states with 2503 drownings reported in 2022. and according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2010 children from low income families are four more times likely to drown and “black children drown 2.3 times more often than their white peers.
Within many communities there is a consistent need for lifeguards, swimming lessons and learning safety/survival skills. Sit & Swim’s goal is to teach, train and certify lifeguards, babysitters, swim instructors and the youth in CPR/FA/AED; to work within their community and beyond. We have identified that residents within the Tampa area/zip code of: 33610, 33604, 33603 & 33617 all have household incomes under $25K and these area’s will be our initial target areas. We intend to help create a strong foundation that helps to ultimately address the needs of the future-by providing minority and low income youth the ability to save the lives of others through our training.