OROSI, Calif. – At the Orosi High School graduation in June, 253 students lined up in rows to walk onto an outdoor stage and receive their diplomas.
But one student who should have been there wasn’t.
Two years ago, Alejandro Araujo and some of his friends were on a boat at Shaver Lake in the Sierra Nevada.
“He had a safety vest, and he jumped in the water, and the safety vest must have just slipped right out of him and he never came up,” said Yolanda Valdez, superintendent of the Cutler Orosi Joint School District.
“It was the most devastating, awful thing ever,” she said. “He would have graduated this year. There was an empty chair at graduation and a moment of silence for him.”
The school district encompasses two neighboring farmworker communities, Cutler and Orosi.
Valdez said the fact that so many kids in her district don’t know how to swim is a symptom of poverty. But it’s something the district is changing.
Thanks to a million-dollar grant from Tulare County and other one-time funds, the district now has a brand-new aquatics complex at Orosi High.
Valdez said the district built the complex to teach water safety and save lives. Only recently a toddler in Cutler drowned in an above ground pool.
“We want to teach our children how to swim so they can survive,” she said.
Drowning rates higher in rural areas
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 4,500 people in the United States die annually due to unintentional drowning. Drowning is also the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4.
In areas that are rural or economically disadvantaged, drowning rates are higher. One CDC report found that in counties with high overall social vulnerability, fatal drowning rates are 1.59 times as high as counties with low social vulnerability.
This may be due to “reduced access to swimming pools, affordable swimming lessons and other evidence-based drowning prevention strategies.”
Drowning rates are also about 35% higher in rural areas compared to urban areas, according to the CDC.
“It’s an opportunity gap that our kids don’t know how to swim, it’s an opportunity gap that they didn’t have an aquatics complex,” said Valdez. “Swimming and being able to enjoy the waterways is also a quality of life issue.”
On a recent day, 8-year-old Rojelio Aranda was enjoying the beach-entry wading pool at Orosi High’s aquatics complex.
He used a kickboard to kick to the other side of the pool.
“I think this is fun,” he said. “I’m having a good time. It feels amazing and it also feels awesome.”
Starting this summer, kids, including Rojelio, can take low-cost swim lessons at the complex.
Lead lifeguard Donovan Castillo watched carefully as kids took turns using the kickboards
9-year-old Dylan Rodarte kicked so hard he could barely spell his last name for an interview when he reached the other side of the pool.
“R-o-d-a-r-t-e,” he let out breathlessly.
He said being in the water was awesome.
“I feel like I’m swimming like in the sky.”
Teaching water safety
Luis Ayala, a parent, sat under the shade watching his 9-year-old son Gael take lessons. He said he and other parents are relieved their kids are learning to swim.
“It means a lot, because these children don’t know how to swim. It’s good they can learn at this age, you know, because if something happens, they know what to do when they’re going into the water,” he said.
Like many people in Cutler-Orosi, Ayala works in agriculture. He’s a truck driver who picks up milk from the dairies and takes it to cheese plants.
He said he had a friend who drowned years ago in a local lake because he didn’t know how to swim. It’s one reason he’s so glad his child, Gael, is also learning water safety in his swim lessons.
Castillo, the swim instructor, said he asks the kids what they should do if another kid is struggling in the pool?
“Do you jump in there with them? A lot of kids will react and they wanna be heroes obviously, they wanna jump,” he said.
But instead, he tells them to stay on land and be a hero.
“Grabbing a sturdy tool or like a hose that’s already connected to the wall. Hand it to them and pull them in,” he said.
Diana Moncada oversees the swim program. She said teaching water safety is vital in a community that’s close to so much open water.
“They go to canals, they go to lakes, they go to rivers,” she said. “It’s not safe if you don’t know how to swim.”
She said the center also offers water aerobics, open swim and lap swim too. Apart from the wading pool, there’s a sparkling blue 50x25 meter lap pool.
And soon there will be a lifeguard training program.
“We’re working on programs so we can teach and home grow our own lifeguards for next year,” Moncada said. “That’s our goal. It was very hard to get lifeguards this year because our community doesn’t know how to swim.”
Right now, the lifeguards come from neighboring towns like Reedley and Dinuba. One lifeguard drives an hour from Fresno to get here.
His name is Luca Lofaro.
“Swimming’s always been a part of my life,” Lofaro said. “I was pretty surprised when I learned this was the first community pool that was here.”
In the afternoon, students who are in an after-school program get to take swim lessons for free through the district.
“We are going to be teaching you guys how to swim. It’s very important that we all know how to swim,” Pool Manager Antonio Diaz said to a group of first and second-graders.
Then he started by teaching them how to kick.
9-year-old Precious Hernandez moved her legs up and down in the water and described what it’s like to swim.
“It’s kind of difficult and it’s kind of easy. You just have to keep on practicing,” she said.
She’s already preparing for a future that involves swimming.
“When I grow up, I want to be a lifeguard,” she said.
A lifeguard – so she can keep other kids safe and prevent future tragedies.
