Cannonball!

The sounds of summer are all around us, laughing, splashing, and “Cannonballs”! The anticipation of the swimming pool opening is a summer tradition at Gillis. In order to open the pool it has to be inspected by the city before anyone is able to swim. The day of the inspection arrived, you could sense the anticipation as a crowd of boys started lining up around the pool watching and praying that our pool would pass. Unfortunately, we failed because our pool did not have a hand rail in the shallow end of the pool, in order to pass inspection we would have to have one installed. The boys were disappointed so "Operation Hand Rail" kicked off. We had to find the handrail and get it installed as quickly as possible. I made some calls and Kraft Pool Services came to the rescue.  He found the handrail and installed it all in one day! The inspector was called we passed our test and the celebration began.

Swimming is one of the most popular summer activities at Gillis. We make every effort to provide the safest swimming environment possible. One of my coworkers recently posted on Facebook that her son had passed his swimming test, she was so proud of him for reaching this goal. One of the joys of my job is teaching Gillis kids to swim, I too feel those proud moments every time one of them passes the deep end swim test. They work hard and practice every day to earn this badge of courage. The test consists of swimming the Crawl stroke for two laps using proper technique and being able to tread water for 90 seconds.  When they finally reach their goal and pass, they are filled with pride and a sense of accomplishment. It is really one of the highlights of my job; the look on their faces when they pass into the deep end is priceless.

Submitted by Pam Sanders, Director of Recreation