Q: What saves lives, earns good money and makes new friends every day?
A: The JCC swimming pool.
Sound like a big fish story?
it’s not. The Lenny Krayzelburg
JCC Swim Academy aims to transform
JCC pools from loss-leaders to
revenue powerhouses and magnets
for new members...and make
a generation of kids water-safe
in the process.
Rebirth of the Pool
When Olympic champ Lenny Krayzelburg approached Executive Director Brian Greene
with a proposition to open a new swim school at the Westside JCC, Greene had nothing
to lose. The JCCs of greater Los Angeles were restructuring, and Westside was partially
shut down. The pool itself was closed, and Greene, anxious to open it up again, was
receptive to any plan, especially one coming from the well-known, world-class swimmer
who had spent his early years—after emigrating to America from Ukraine at age
ten—swimming in the Westside JCC pool.
But his expectations were modest. “When our pool had been open in earlier years, we used to have two or three hundred kids taking swimming lessons, and I thought to myself, ‘Boy, if we could get back to those glory days, that would be wonderful.’ And then Lenny presented us with a business plan that said he was going to have four or five hundred students within a year, and we all thought, hey, it’s great that he wants to be optimistic, but this is ridiculous! But we figured if he achieved half of what he wanted to do, that would be great for us.”
Within months, Lenny had 750 students taking lessons at Westside—each week.
That was four years ago. The program’s success led to the pool being shut down again—this time for an expansion. Westside recently opened its new Harry & Jeannette Weinberg Aquatics Center, a $4.5 million, state-of-the-art swimming facility created through the generosity of major gifts from the Weinbergs and others. The JCC now averages 1,250 students taking weekly swim lessons, with a peak of 1,400 in the summer months.
Revenue coming to the JCC from the swim academy has grown accordingly. “It’s even more profitable now, especially with the new facility. It’s become a very key part of our operating revenue,” says Greene. “The Lenny K Swim Academy initialized the revitalization of our Center.”
Brighton Beach Memoir
More than just a continent separates Los Angeles’ Westside JCC from the Shorefront YM-YWHA in Brooklyn, New York. Shorefront serves the communities of Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, home to a large concentration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Shorefront provides social services to this population, and works to integrate them into American society—in the settlement-house tradition of the first JCCs—while reconnecting them to their Jewish roots.
Shorefront also had a functioning—and busy—pool, when they decided to bring in the Lenny K JCC Swim Academy. “We already had swim instruction,” says Executive Director Sue Fox. “We had swim classes, junior swim team, senior swim team, and lap swimmers. We were already making money from our swim instruction.”
So why make the change?
“We were looking to strengthen our program to teach children swimming, and to reach out to new families,” says Fox. “The Swim Academy really is bringing a great new resource here.” Shorefront pins its success on adapting to its neighborhood’s patterns of growth and initiating programming that is valuable for its members. Fox saw in the Lenny K Swim Academy an opportunity to reach out to the more affluent members of the community, those who were not drawn to the Y for social services. “Lenny Krayzelburg is a known name to everybody in the Russian Jewish world. He’s one of their heroes.” The program only opened mid-June, but Shorefont is already planning ways to expand its Lenny K swim programming, expanding it into summer camp and preschool programming.
Making New Friends: A Crossover Hit
Not only has the Lenny K Swim Academy rejuvenated Westside’s pool and brought a new standard of programming excellence to Shorefront, it’s also been responsible for a lot of crossover at both centers, as families attracted initially by the swim lessons discover and take part in other JCC offerings.
“We are seeing cross-enrollment all the time,” says Greene. “Families coming in for a swim lesson hear about our preschool, and discover our teen program. Children who are taking swimming are also taking gymnastics classes, etc.” At Shorefront, Fox finds that new people drawn to the JCC for the first time because of the Swim Academy are getting involved in other family programming.
What’s the Secret?
What’s so different about the Lenny K Swim Academy? How does it grow so quickly, bring new families to the pool, and on to other parts of the JCC? The answer lies in the SwimRight Method, the academy’s unique teaching curriculum.
“We have a very precise teaching style,” Krayzelburg says. “We follow a clear progression, beginning with getting a child comfortable in the water, floating on their back, and getting a good sense of their surroundings in the water. We’re very hands-on—every instructor is required to be in the pool with the kids, and we have a four-to-one ratio of students to instructors, so kids get more individual attention.”
As children learn, they progress through different levels that are broken down into individual skills. Parents are given a sticker book detailing the goals of each level of instruction, with every skill spelled out clearly. When children achieve a goal, they are given a sticker for the book.
“The instruction builds confidence from the moment their toes hit the water,” says Fox. Stickers motivate the children, serving as clear indicators to them—and to the family—of their accomplishments. Greene concurs, noting that children progress rapidly through the steps. They quickly become comfortable in the water, learn basic strokes, and become swimmers. “When children progress that quickly through the steps, they feel successful, and they’re excited to come back every week.”
The Bottom Line: Saving Lives
With Krayzelburg’s career successes [see inset], he could be training the next generation of world champions, but instead he chose to return to his roots at the JCC and work with children and infants, the ultimate beginners. Why?
“Every single child needs to learn to swim, and every parent has to address water safety for their child,” Krayzelburg says. “For me, coaching elite swimmers and Olympic hopefuls doesn’t bring the same satisfaction as being able to impact thousands of kids, and getting them first and foremost water-safe. Teaching kids to swim is giving them a gift for life. It’s an incredible feeling.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years, and accounts for fully 26 percent of deaths of children ages 1 to 4. Survival tests are part of the Lenny K. curriculum. “We teach kids how to behave in the water in case of an emergency,” Krayzelburg says. “They develop the instinct to roll onto their back and float—that’s the first part of our survival test, and we’ve got a ten-month-old who’s already doing it.”
The second part of the survival test involves training the children to get themselves back to the side of the pool.
“What makes these survival tests unique is that they’re done fully clothed. We want to stress the real-world situation, and give the child the natural instinct so they won’t panic should they ever find themselves in this situation,” Krayzelburg says. “They’ll know what to do.”
“It’s critically important,” says Fox. “We’re right here by the ocean, and always very concerned about drowning statistics. I know that because of what we do, parents will not have to go through that awful experience.”
And parents appreciate it. Both JCCs report their best marketing tool for the Swim Academy is word of mouth. Parents see their kids happy and motivated to be swimming, and they tell their friends.
“It’s better than anything else I’ve seen out there,” says Greene. “It’s a first-rate curriculum for swim instruction. Lenny’s name and background initially attract people to the program, but they stay because of the quality of the swim instruction.
“It’s a great business venture, it’s created a great name for Westside in the community, but it’s also saving lives, and that’s the bottom line.”
Who is Lenny K, anyway?
Lenny Krayzelburg is a four-time Olympic gold medalist, and was the U.S. Olympic Team Captain in 2004. A dominant backstroker, at one point Lenny owned all six world records in the event. He won the 100m and 200m back at the 1998 World Championships, and is an 11-time US National Champion.
Lenny was born in Odessa, Ukraine. His family faced discrimination as Jews, and in 1989 his parents decided to immigrate to the United States and settle in Los Angeles. He quickly found an aquatic home at the WESTSIDE JCC, where he trained with Steve Becker, now JCC Association’s director of heath and wellness services. As a teen, Lenny competed in the JCC MACCABI GAMES® in Detroit (1990) and Baltimore (1992). He became a U.S. citizen in 1995 and graduated with a business degree from USC in 1998.
Following his dominating performance at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Lenny surprised many in the swimming world by forgoing the 2001 World Championships in order to participate in the 16th MACCABIAH GAMES in Israel. At that time, Israel was plagued by violence related to the second intifada, and Lenny’s decision to attend helped rally a sizeable U.S. team, which in turn contributed to a hearty turnout of delegates from around the world. He carried in the flag for the United States at the opening ceremonies, and won gold in the 100-meter backstroke and the 4 x 100 m medley relay.
Q: What saves lives, earns good money and makes new friends every day?
Download JCC Cirlce Fall 2009 (PDF)