The Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Fitness Center, built around the community’s first pool, came to life through fundraising efforts to address the disproportionate number of deaths by drowning in the area.
“I grew up on the Kuskokwim and I did not know how to swim. We didn't wear life jackets back in the day, and I had a great fear of water,” said Bev Hoffman, one of the original members of the Y-K Delta Lifesavers, a group founded predominantly by Bethel mothers to fundraise for the construction of a pool in Bethel. The group was able to raise over $350,000 to build the pool in 2014.
For Hoffman, learning how to swim was crucial to overcoming her fear of being in the water.
“I learned how to swim at 18,” Hoffman said. “I took beginning swim classes when I was at a junior college in Florida, and it just gave me so much confidence and [helped me] overcome my fear of water that I wanted the same for so many people of the Kuskokwim and the Yukon Delta. We’ve had so many deaths by drowning all the time. And, you know, there's more awareness of life jackets, but there's still a lot of people that didn't know how to swim.”
Despite the Kuskokwim River being widely accessible for residents to swim in, Hoffman argued that learning to swim in a pool has greater advantages.
“It's easier to teach water safety and proper swim technique in a pool setting,” Hoffman said. “But the other side of having a pool in Bethel and a fitness center in a community our size with close-by villages [is that] it is not only teaching all of those lessons, but it's a healthy outlet in a harsh environment.”
Today, the Y-K Delta Lifesavers continue to raise funds to make the pool more accessible to low-income residents. They also provide free lifeguard certification classes to all swimmers. The Y-K Fitness Center partners with the American Red Cross (ARC) to offer lifeguard training as part of the ARC Centennial Program.
Yet despite the swimmers and water polo players who frequent the pool, the Y-K Fitness Center has had difficulty recruiting lifeguards. It's not alone in this issue. Director Stacey Reardon said that it appears to be a trend at multiple pools across the nation.
“Sometimes it is a level of responsibility that some people don't feel comfortable with,” said Reardon. “I've had some of my younger staff say that they don't feel comfortable being responsible for people's lives out on the pool deck.”
Reardon believes that the pandemic has had an impact on swim skills in the community.
“My last [lifeguard] class, I had eight people try for the class, but only four of those people had the skills to actually take the class,” Reardon said. “So part of that is participating in swim lessons, which we didn't have for three years because of COVID. So we have kind of this gap in skills in order to enable folks to take the class.”
Many lifeguards are high school students, who inevitably move on as they attend college and vocational schools. As a result of the decreased number of lifeguards, the Y-K Fitness Center has had to cut back on key community programming.
“During our Adult Swim hours there's no lifeguards, but that's open for ages 18 and older only because there's no lifeguards,” said Reardon. “We struggle to have a set schedule for our recreational swim because from week to week we're not positive that we're going to have lifeguard coverage. We used to have swim parties available on a regular basis. People would do birthday parties and things like that, and we've had to restrict that because we can't guarantee that we will have lifeguards for a given weekend.”
To help it manage its growing needs, the Y-K Fitness Center recruited Annie Lang, its first ever year-long volunteer from Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest. Lang said that the shortage of lifeguards has meant she’s done a lot more lifeguarding than she might have anticipated.
“I think ideally, like, I'd be lifeguarding a lot less and doing more, like, programming, coordinating things like that as a volunteer,” Lang said.
Lang has seen the stress of not having enough lifeguards weigh heavily on her colleagues as well.
“I do feel bad when I see my coworkers stressing, like, ‘We need someone right now, like, who can come in today?’ And then I [also feel] bad for the lifeguards who are in every day, who maybe don't want to be in every day and want to have a day off, but they feel obligated to come watch the pool,” said Lang.
“Having more lifeguards would be great more for my colleagues’ sake, because I know a lot of them work long hours and maybe have to step in,” Lang continued. “Some of them are qualified to be lifeguards, but that's not their main position, [so] then they have to step in and lifeguard because we have so few.”
While she feels the weight of the responsibility of looking out for other’s lives as a lifeguard, Lang said that she feels that the training and support she’s received from her colleagues makes her feel more confident in executing her duties.
“It's totally normal to be nervous about that kind of stuff, but that's what the training is for, and that's what being on the job is for,” said Lang. “You'll have fellow lifeguards around you there to support you, and you know you're all going through the same thing. You can share how you feel with them as well.”
Lang and Reardon encourage people to become lifeguard certified. Reardon said that a good lifeguard is someone who can really be present while they work.
“You're taking people's lives into your hands. So it is really important that you're serious about that, and that you are able to be a good guard,” said Reardon. “In terms of what it takes to be a good guard is really about being able to focus, being able to pay attention, being able to see what's going on around you and intervene in situations before they become emergencies.”
Lang also emphasized that it’s a low-stakes commitment to try out.
“It's free training,” Lang said. “So I would say just do it, and then there's no pressure to become a lifeguard after that.”
For now, the pool is making do with a shorter lifeguard staff. But Reardon and Lang said that they hope to grow the number of certified lifeguards so even more swimming and training opportunities can be available for community members – both for fun, and for safety.
For Hoffman, the pool is a community accomplishment. She said that it’s important for all Bethel residents to utilize the pool in order to foster an upcoming generation of strong swimmers.
“I want to encourage parents to get the kids in swim lessons,” Hoffman said. “Let them learn the proper technique of swimming so they feel strong to, say, if they fell out of a boat, even with their life jacket, how to [swim] to shore. I want to encourage all young people to consider taking the lifeguard classes, becoming strong swimmers, join the Bethel Swim Club, the high school swim team. Use the facility. It’s our [Y-K Delta] community, it's there for everyone.”
