Are you passionate enough about a cause to start your own nonprofit for it? I am and I did. Here’s my story.
Some fifteen years ago, I began to formulate a plan to recruit and encourage more children in low-income areas of LA to learn to swim. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t have a solid plan in place; just a rosy vision and a hearty passion. It’s a noble start for sure and honestly, that’s how all change starts, really. But, passion without a plan doesn’t get you very far.
This vision really took hold after I spent some time volunteering for the Children’s Bureau organization. I just loved the staff: so professional, caring and wholly invested in the communities they served. I loved the families I met there, and the children especially were so precious. I wanted to teach each and every one of them, from the littlest littles to the teens who looked rather suspicious of everything, as teens are known to do.
I began to investigate the areas nearby. Were there pools available? Was there access? Was it financially feasible to provide both lessons and supplies? Were there any early child swim programs already operating?The answers to these questions wasn’t a solid yes or no,with the exception of early child swim programs. Those did not exist.
In my head, my plan became increasingly elaborate and detailed. I would have THIS and THIS, and THIS and THIS.. and so on and so on. I was embarrassingly naive.ven though my aim was true, the road was nowhere near paved: it was decidedly less traveled. And yet, there I was, slicing through waist-high weeds with a pair of kitchen scissors, as my own fantasies about how it all COULD BE SO WONDERFUL took off!
My benevolent hubris dictated that I call a meeting with the higher-ups to recruit all these wonderful people to help with this plan. And by the way — no one was deterring me either. Everyone I talked to in my little world agreed: “YES! we needed more access to swimming and lessons in low income/minority communities; YES! if you could get pool time there were organizations that would donate suits and caps; YES! what a good person you are, Lisa, to recognize this and try to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”
So I had this meeting. I gave my impassioned speech, talked about my vision — again, no real solid plan in place, but the vision was top-notch. The board members and managers smiled, nodded, and seemed enthusiastic about my ideas. This was happening!
Now that I’ve been a business owner for twenty years, I’ve learned a few things. One of them is it doesn’t matter how many people on the team think it’s a great idea. It only matters if the boss likes it. And in this case, he did not.
It wasn’t that he thought it was necessarily a bad idea, and he didn’t exactly say no either. But he wasn’t smiling,nodding, or giving any indication that he thought I walked on water or anything remotely close to it.
And so he shut me down. And he reminded me that I really had no concept of what these families’ lives were like. I didn’t have a clue how challenging the simple day-to-day choices were for most of them. How little money and resources and access and time they had; how most often they were just trying to figure out how to put food on the table everyday. How to get their kids shoes so they could even attend school; most of the time school books were out of the question. Why on earth would something as frivolous as swim lessons be a priority?
I was deeply ashamed, I don’t mind telling you now. And in many ways he was right to pour ice water over my dreams. Because I was naive, I was just an eager beaver with a great idea but nothing concrete. And when I left, I also don’t mind telling you that I sulked for quite some time.
Oh, but these lessons are so vital to the process. Please listen when I tell you that it deterred me for a while, but not that long a while and I was right back at it. Because I KNEW in my gut that while he was 100% right, he was also a little wrong. In a few small but very important ways, I was righter and I was not going to stop forging ahead with this.
Instead I realized that I needed a few things I hadn’t had up until that point. I needed help, I needed more information, I needed a real plan and I needed money.
Now, what I’m not going to do is take you through the next ten or so years of my journey that gets me to this place right now. Suffice to say, I metaphorically climbed the mountains of Tibet and found the wise old woman who sat patiently waiting for me to realize that I had everything I needed right in front of me. I just needed to declare it out loud.
The voice inside my head started to suggest: “Lisa YOU need your own non-profit. Stop trying to get the attention of others and take ownership of your idea. Declare it and name it and start to develop it. Don’t wait for anyone to give you permission for it. You know it’s important. You know it’s needed. For fucks sake! Put your own money where your mouth is and file!”
And now I had a real plan in place. Yes, it’s a crazy big idea and yes, I’m still not sure how on earth I’m gonna get all of it to come together and yes, I’m aware that visions take shape and then morph and take another shape, and then another, and finally when they’re realized they look vastly different but still gratifyingly recognizable enough that you can say, “ahh, this was it all along.”
And now back to the small yet very important way in which I believe the guy in charge was wrong.
If I were to say to you — give me an image that encapsulates luxury, relaxation, elegance, success, “the good life”… ONE image — I can tell you that everyone I’ve asked this question to has the same answer: a picture of someone’s feet lying on a chair or towel in front of water — either a pool or the ocean. This image, more than any other is recognized as a sign of “ahhhhh… I made it.”‘Here I am, check me out”, check out this view. This is what success feels like.
That image and what it embodies needs to be attainable for anyone. And yes, it’s a lot of work to get there and yes, for a child growing up in a low income area in LA it may be farther and harder BUT it still needs to be possible. It still needs to FEEL possible. And by focusing solely on the barest minimum of life’s necessities, it keeps the eyes at that level and the brain at that level and the soul at that level.
We need to focus on bringing more opportunities and more possibilities and more hope that gives these children and these families more. And while swim lessons may be an oversimplification of a very large problem, we indeed need to start somewhere and why not with swim? It is a life skill, it is the personification of summer and joy and frivolous fun, it is healthy and social and filled with shouts and splashes and pool parties and beaches and colorful bathing suits and water gun fights and rafts shaped like pizza slices and giant swans.
It is virtually impossible not to be happy in a pool.
IF you can swim.
And so my goal for 2021–2028 is to give as many children the opportunity to experience that joy, and to teach their parents so they can enjoy it with them. o bring the lessons TO the kids at school so parents don’t have to add one more thing to their already overwhelming list. Lessons will be subsidized, and suits will be provided, and pools will be built on campuses. Kids will have books about learning to swim. The swim program will start in preschool, which helps immensely with overall brain and physical development, and gives children more exposure to the water at an earlier age, ensuring that they’ll stay in lessons longer, learn faster, and become more confident and safer sooner.
Aaaaaaaaand it doesn’t stop there. Because we will also (in partnership with the Swim Up Hill foundation) teach parents too, so that families can swim together. This promotes healthy activities, bonding and positive relationships.
It is unacceptable that in this City of Los Angeles there are thousands of children growing up without knowing how to swim. And it’s correctable.
I’m here for that. I’m showing up, because I believe it can be done.
From kidSwim Inc. to the AllkidSwim Foundation, the mission is teaching ALL children to swim, ALL children to be safe, ALL children to love the water.
Who’s in?