W.W. “Buck” Duncan, president of the Mid-Shore Community Foundation, and Dr. Sherry Manning, chair of the Miles River YC Foundation, urge all Talbot County citizens to support the “SOS: Sink or Swim” program.
The Miles River Yacht Club Foundation has received a $7,500 contribution from the Mid-Shore Community Foundation to underwrite partial 2015 costs of the MRYC Foundation’s signature program – “SOS: Sink or Swim”. The Foundation seeks in five years to teach every Talbot County non-swimming child how to swim.
Last summer, 275 non-swimmers became swimmers in a program carried out in partnership with the St. Michaels Community Center and Critchlow Atkins Children’s Center at the St. Michaels Community Pool. The Foundation hopes to increase that number to 1,000 next summer as it expands the program. According to Dr. Sherry Manning, MRYC Foundation Chairman, “nineteen people drowned in Maryland waters in the last year, including several on the Eastern Shore. Learning to swim is not a luxury, but a necessity when you live near the water.”
In making the grant to the SOS program, W.W. “Buck” Duncan, Mid-Shore Community Foundation President, said “swimming is a basic life skill that every Chesapeake Bay child should have, both for safety and as a prelude to being a boater and learning to enjoy the Chesapeake Bay. It is also an athletic accomplishment that will enrich every child’s life. We are pleased to partner with the MRYC Foundation in supporting this important program.”
Founded in 2010, the MRYC Foundation has granted $148,694 to 23 non-profit organizations that provide children with maritime-oriented competitive sports or educational activities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
