The Boys and Girls Club Yerwood Center in Stamford is opening its pool to about a hundred children for a four-day water safety camp.
The ZAC Foundation, founded by a Greenwich family who lost a son in a swimming accident, helped put on the camp. Karen Cohn and her husband lost their 6-year-old son, Zachary, in 2007. He drowned in a swimming pool after trapping his arm in a drain.
Cohn says statistics show that drowning is the leading cause of unintentional deaths for children age 1 through 5.
The camp includes swimming lessons and other safety education. Some of the participants had never been in a pool before.
The ZAC Foundation has hosted similar camps around the country, including in Greenwich, but this is its first visit to Stamford.
"For me, it brings some healing and definitely some happiness to be able to watch these other children either learning how to swim or just learning water safety," Cohn says.
Along with the swimming portion of the camp, there's also a classroom section to teach kids how to avoid danger and a chance for the kids to interact with emergency responders.