Safe Swim NYC

WE BELIEVE LEARNING TO SWIM IS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE.

Waterproofing, our free learn-to-swim program, has a distinguished history. Since 1994, we have taught over 35,000 New York City public school students how to stay safe in the water. We have redoubled our efforts through Wave Makers, a partnership with the Gray Foundation and New York City Council to teach 2,000 second graders to swim for free and demonstrate the best pathways to full-scale free swim instruction across the five boroughs. A recent grant from USA Swimming Foundation is expanding our swim instruction for adults.

SWIMMING SHOULD BE ACCESSIBLE TO PEOPLE OF ALL ABILITIES.

Asphalt Green believes aquatics should be accessible to all people, regardless of ability. We also know that the number one cause of death for children on the Autism spectrum, aged 14 and under, is water-related accidents. We recently hired a Director of Adaptive Programming to incorporate best practices in inclusive instruction throughout all our offerings, including swim instruction. Through partnerships with local special education schools, we are helping hundreds of children with special needs learn to swim.

ADDRESSING POOL DESERTS IS KEY.

Asphalt Green has developed an innovative digital Pool Atlas in partnership with Avison Young. Leveraging their AVANT system, this interactive map plots every known available pool across the five boroughs, as well as demographic census data. This will allow Asphalt Green to devise and generate important data points, such as pool walkability scores, that will inform which communities have the least access to water suitable to swim instruction.

SAFE SWIMMING REQUIRES QUALIFIED LIFEGUARDS.

Asphalt Green will leverage its vast experience and highly qualified staff of aquatics instructors and coaches to accelerate lifeguard training and job placement. Our end-to-end approach to lifeguard training will allow us to reach the maximum possible number of potential lifeguard candidates and to match them with available lifeguard positions throughout the city.

WATER SAFETY REQUIRES EDUCATION OUTSIDE OF THE WATER.

We aim to develop educational resources free for anyone to access that will include tips for safe swimming, informational graphics, instructional videos, and more. It is our hope that a free library of educational materials will help keep more people safe in the water. Our community programming currently operates in more than 50 public schools, giving us the ability to disseminate water safety resources to tens of thousands of students and their families. We will also leverage existing relationships with partners like USA Swimming.

LEARNING TO SWIM CAN SAVE & TRANSFORM A PERSON’S LIFE.

We believe swimming is not just a life-saving skill—it can also bring joy into people’s lives and open doors to opportunities that would not otherwise be available. We have provided hundreds of scholarships to our nationally-ranked AGUA swim team to make competitive swimming more accessible. We also hope to help launch a citywide community swim league to further expand aquatics opportunities for New York City youth. Our annual Big Swim event is the perfect encapsulation of the joy of swimming and the impact of making swimming accessible to all.