ICW Remarks at The Adelaide Sanford Institute

Good morning and welcome to everyone attending this Adelaide Sanford Institute event. My name is Michael Randazzo, and I lead Inclusive Community Wellness, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit striving to get New Yorkers to improve their physical, social-emotional and mental health, primarily through community-based fitness and aquatics programs.

My thanks to Dr. Renee Young and her husband, Dr. Lester Young, for allowing me to say a few words. I’m honored to share the stage with so many Brooklyn leaders who provide vital educational and athletic opportunities to local children.

Members of the Adelaide Sanford Institute, which meets monthly at Boys & Girls High School in Brooklyn’s BedStuy neighborhood. Photo: Adelaide Stanford Institute

In particular, I’m glad to see Perry Williams, Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest, CEC District 13, President Cynthia McKnight and Gene Spatz—all of whom have been so helpful to ICW—as well as Hazel Seivwright, who I worked for during my ten years with Long Island University’s Children’s Academy.

My message today about ICW, which was launched in 2016, is simple: we are committed to assisting every New Yorker we can to be healthier. The idea of “fit for life” is essential to our approach to aquatics and physical fitness.

In the past six months, ICW, along with its partners LIU and the DOE’s D13 Community Education Council, has provided almost 1,200 learn-to-swim lessons to 600 children ages 4 to 12—lessons that were either free or subsidized.

[Brooklyn Summer Swim Program Provides Memories for a Lifetime]

ICW has also helped adults overcome their resistance to water; in fact, we are one of the few programs in Brooklyn providing adults with vital learn-to-swim skills.

For 2023 ICW is poised to do much more. At the end of this month, we will begin the first of two Red Cross lifeguard certification classes. As local news reports have pointed out, our city desperately needs more lifeguards. We are committed to addressing a talent shortage that directly impacts access to the programs and facilities that make all New Yorkers comfortable, confident and safe in the water.

Brooklyn Swims! Community Day in August, 2022. Photo: Tony Davis

We are working with LIU to identify pool time available during the school day and will arrange for local schools to have their students learn to swim during school hours. We know that to make our kids truly drown-proof, swim lesson at an early age—preferably when they are in second grade—is optimal.

We hope to be given pool time at the Major Owens Center to offer weekday evening learn-to-swim classes for adults—perhaps as soon as next month.

We continue to oversee New York City’s largest youth water polo program. With more than 100 athletes ages 8 – 18, we seek opportunities for all our members to compete at the sport’s highest levels. We are open to any child—whether or not they can afford our fees—but to play polo you have to be able to swim.

We expect that pool space will again be available for our pop-up learn-to-swim programs that have proven to be both popular and effective in encouraging kids to embrace swimming. ICW is fortunate that it has qualified instructors, coaches and lifeguards to staff our programs. In fact, the biggest challenge we face is not funding, though that is a major obstacle. Lack of pool time—a situation exacerbated by the recent closing of the St Francis Brooklyn pool—is our biggest problem.

The St. Francis Brooklyn pool is gone after faithfully serving Downtown Brooklyn swimmers for almost 50 years. Photo: M. Randazzo

This is where ICW needs the most help. There are pools: in Crown Heights at Medgar Evers and the Major Owens Center. The DOE has pools in their schools: John Jay, Prospect Heights Educational Campus, Brooklyn Tech, Thomas Jefferson, East New York Family Academy and others. If granted access, ICW will make swimming considerably more accessible and affordable; currently there’s little availability at local YMCAs and the cost of a swim lesson at the Major Owens Center is $55 per half hour. Very few Brooklyn families are fortunate enough to have their kids swim; ICW intends to change this by again making free or subsidized learn to swim programs available to those who most deserve them.

We are developing plans for yoga, physical fitness and nutrition offerings—again with the goal of helping New Yorkers become their best selves. We also want to ensure that any child who wants to pursue opportunities in aquatics—be it as a swimmer, polo player, lifeguard or coach—are able to participate in swimming and polo as much as they desire.

So many folks have been instrumental in enabling ICW to successfully carry out its mission that it would take too much time to mention them all. But I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Otis Alves, Maureen Boucher, Robyn Davison, Ken Moore and Carl Quigley for their exceptional efforts.

Thank you for this opportunity to share about our organization.