Saving Lives In South Miami, One Pool At A Time : NPR Ed : NPR

Saving Lives In South Miami, One Pool At A Time : NPR Ed : NPR: It's hot out. The usual midday thunderstorm has just passed, and the few kids hanging out on bleachers around the pool at Miami's Ransom Everglades School finally get the go-ahead to jump in and cool off.

Eight-year-old Gary Kendrick and the others are all here for swim lessons.

"They told us to hold on to the wall and kick our feet and, like, move our arms," Kendrick says. "When I had to swim to one of the counselors I was really swimming. I ain't even know I was moving."

Kendrick doesn't have the technique of an Olympic swimmer, but he can make it to the side of a pool if he's pushed, falls in, or just wants to cool off.

Kendrick is one of a handful of kids from South Miami to get free swim lessons at Ransom Everglades, a private school with an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The kids—all over the age of 8, all black—are bused over from South Miami's community center once a week.