Summer Was A Splash
/This year at CFNA! Synchronized efforts were made with partner churches, Christ Memorial and Reliant, to collect all the swim essentials for the Peace Center youth and adults: swimsuits, towels, goggles, and of course a place to be in the water!
Reliant hosted a “Splash Pad” event on their campus, inviting families to come play in the sprinklers, enjoy food, and relax while children from the church and CFNA enjoyed sprinklers and a little bit of frisbee too.
A member from Christ Memorial hosted swim lessons for Muslim young women in her private pool. Culturally, these young ladies do not go to public pools, and so many of them had never swam! By the end of the visit, several had gained the ability to swim across the pool with instruction from two volunteer swim teachers. Snacks were also provided, so there was fun socializing as well.
Click Images to Enlarge
Donors from the CFNA community provided for 30 students to take a weeklong swim course. It was impressive to see the determination in the kindergarten through high schoolers’ eyes as they learned how to hold their breath underwater, blow bubbles, float, and the biggest joy for everyone - jump into the deeper water at the end of each class.
Meeting up at a local pool, the Reliant Young Adult group dove into the fun with several youth from the Peace Center. Swimming 101 and first experiences with rushing water slides were enjoyed together. Pizza and fellowship were shared, and more youth learned to swim.
CFNA hosted a Women’s Night at the Pool one evening, where women age 16 and older were invited to hang out, learn to swim from instructors and enjoy snacks and a door prize. The night was filled with conversation, laughter and a few more friends gained swimming skills.
On the last day of July, one more swimming party was produced with the youth group communities of Christ Memorial, Timothy Lutheran, and the CFNA youth. God showed us mercy on what had been predicted to be a 100+ temperature day and gave us cloud cover and an excellent show of youth. More snacks, more sun, more lazy river, more youth learning to swim.
It was a Wet n’ Wild time, but we are all so thankful for the life saving skills learned this summer directly related to the support given by you, our community. 63 people volunteered time to play in water with us, 66 New Americans were given a suit and a swim experience, several of those gained life saving swim skills. Thank you for your time and partnership.
If you have a heart to reach out to recently arrived refugees, donate items, want to contribute funds or just want to be a part of something exciting coming up at CFNA, reach out me and be a person of community impact.
Amy Zeigler
azeigler@cfna-stl.org
