TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — "Summertime is a vital time for children to have character building skills, resilient skills, and not to be idle mind at home watching a screen all day," said Trishay Young, Melanin Mothers Meet.
Trishay Young, a mother of two, said after finding out about the shortage of lifeguards she worries this is one less activity to help keep kids motivated over the summer. Young believes without summer activities such as swimming, kids are more prone to get into trouble.
"Their thought patterns might not be directed to space that they need to be directed in, different things like crime rates can go up. We don't want children at home thinking about things that they probably shouldn't be thinking about," said Young.
A national shortage of lifeguards could affect one-third to nearly half of all 300,000 public pools in the U.S. That's according to the American Lifeguard Association. One facility that is being affected is right here in Tallahassee. Right now, Trousdell Aquatic Center has 7 different swimming facilities. All of which may not be used due to the additional need of lifeguards.
"There's so many opportunities that swimming can provide people and so we want to make sure that everybody has the access to do that. We can't do that without lifeguards," said Leslie Adams, Aquatics Supervisor.
Adams said ideally, they'd like to hire more than 60 lifeguards this summer. She said they are willing to work with any schedule to make that happen.
"Swimming itself is such an amazing activity," said Adams.
Adams said they begin taking lifeguards at the age of 15 with training taking up to just one weekend.
"We have plenty of positions still open and it's a really great job," said Adams.
