Credit: Ainsley Jay

Sophomore Izzy Irwin smiles as she talks to Water Warrior swimmers and sophomore Maddie Hartford. Irwin has been volunteering in the program since her freshman year and is on the WHS girls swim and dive team.

Wayland Water Warriors celebrated its 15th anniversary at the Wayland Community Pool on Wednesday, April 15. Water Warriors is a program run by Wayland High School student volunteers that teaches METCO students from elementary to middle school age how to swim.

The program was started in 2011 by former WHS student Isabel Todd during her sophomore year as a way to bring water safety to METCO students. Todd was inspired by a conversation with a Happy Hollow teacher who shared that some METCO students could not attend pool or beach parties at the end of the school year because they did not know how to swim. Todd had also seen statistics showing that African American children have a notably higher drowning rate than white children.

“That [conversation] made me think that there should be an effort to make sure we could teach everyone at the school how to swim because it’s such an important life lesson, and that’s kind of how it started,” Todd said.

The children attend 10 sessions from March to May. They are bused from Boston to the community pool and spend around an hour and a half with high school students learning basic water safety and practicing swimming techniques.

“The elementary school teachers say that this is the favorite day of the week for them because they get a chance to come and swim at the pool,” Keith Melionis, an adult Water Warriors volunteer said.

When the program began, there were 30 swimmers and 16 volunteers. This year, there are 35 swimmers and about 45 high school instructors. The current student advisors are senior Sona Abrahamyan and junior Max Rainville, who work with other WHS student volunteers to organize and plan each session.

“I’m so proud of the high school for supporting it and the high school swimming program for really standing behind this,” said Isabel’s mother, Janet Schwartz, who helped with the initial logistics of the program.

By instructing and connecting with the kids, the Water Warriors program is not only beneficial to METCO students, but also to the high school volunteers.

“Just seeing the smiles on their faces [has] truly changed my life,” Abrahamyan said.

Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the program was an exciting and proud moment for Todd. Starting the program as sophomore, Todd never imagined that Water Warriors would make it this far.

“I never thought that it would still be going 15 years later, and it just makes me so happy that the impact has been this lasting and that generations after me see the value of it and continue to move it forward” Todd said.

 

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