Nonprofit and public leaders lead effort to recruit more NYC lifeguards

In 2022, several of New York City’s swimming pools remained closed or operated under reduced hours due to a shortage of lifeguards, all while there was a disproportionate rate of children in communities of color who did not know how to swim. That’s when the Citywide Lifeguard & Aquatics Taskforce was created, a collaborative initiative that includes multiple city agencies and nonprofit organizations to address the lifeguard shortage and create access to swim safety and instruction for children.  

New York Nonprofit Media caught up with Sharon Greenberger, president and CEO of YMCA of Greater New York, Kevin Moran, chief school operations officer at the Department of Education, and Dennis M. Walcott, president, and CEO of the Queens Public Library, who all co-chair of the task force. The trio have worked together in the past and collaborated on the task force to tackle the lifeguard shortage and lack of access to swim safety and instruction.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did this partnership come about?

Greenberger: Dennis, Kevin, and I have known each other and worked together for many, many years. And so that is a separate partnership. But what brought us all back together again was a recognition about two years ago that the city was facing a continued lifeguard shortage, and that we needed a coalition of partners to understand and address what changes could be made to protect more New Yorkers. We created the citywide task force with nonprofit partners, public partners, like the parks department, Department of Education, and philanthropic partners to think about how to increase the number of lifeguards and swim instructors. How do we increase access to pools, especially public schools and school pools? And how do we increase funding and resources to enable even more New Yorkers to participate in swim instruction? And so that was the impetus for that group coming together with the recognition that change can be incremental at times and that we had to sort of take a long view of the things that we could do together to overall increase access.

Walcott:  The ability to partner with Sharon and Kevin and the other task force members was just an exciting opportunity to tackle something that's important to our communities, to our children, to families and to the city overall. So it's just an exciting opportunity to be a part of something that allows us as a task force, I think to focus on important issues involving our children or families and the city overall.

Moran: The task force creation was validating to so many individuals, and really lifted up every individual's role. The task force fundamentally started to build trust amongst one another. It wasn't necessarily a competition over one organization or one city agency, it was, how do we ultimately solve this bigger problem? And that's what I was thinking from an operational background. We have 49 public school pools. When you break it down and go through how many pools are in the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens and Manhattan, etc, you see that there are ultimately access issues when you look at just roughly 50 pools for roughly 1500 buildings. 

I would love to hear more about the dynamic of this partnership, who plays what role and how did you all decide that? 

Greenberger: From my perspective, it's somewhat organic. I like to organize and give people tasks. I'm very bossy that way. But we also need inspiration. And I think Dennis is inspiring because of who he is, what he has done, and how he tackles everything with passion. And Kevin gets everything done. Literally gets everything done.

Walcott: When we're talking about the three of us, this whole dose of respect that we have for our thought process, how we collaborate, how we talk, how we share, how we can even disagree. That to me is so important when you're trying to tackle a very challenging issue that has a lot of impact as far as the health of children, especially in New York City.

Moran: It's the spirit and the kind of competitive nature that we bring together. We've worked together in various capacities. But I would say the dynamic amongst us is, it's beyond collegial. It's quite fun, actually.

This is such a big initiative with so many moving pieces, did you all run into any challenges and how did you overcome them?

Greenberger: If we think about sort of what we set out as goals, one is to increase the number of lifeguards and swim instructors, one was to increase pool access, and one was to increase funding. We were very successful last year, for example, in securing additional dollars to support second-grade swimming and other swim instruction programs. During the city's budget dance, those funds were cut, and we're going to continue to advocate for those dollars to be restored. While that was a setback, we also garnered some significant philanthropic funding to help us. We helped Kevin secure $75 million in capital funding to reopen pools. I think that was something that has been a need front and center. And just having a collective voice push as well, was a really significant accomplishment for us.

Moran: The challenge up front was, you got 49 pools, how do you get them back all online and get resources and capital dollars to do that.

Do you feel the administration has been doing its part in making sure that pools stay open, that lifeguards get paid well and more swim instruction opportunities are given to New Yorkers?

Greenberger: As one of the co-chairs of the task force, I think that Sue Donoghue, the Parks Department commissioner, has been the greatest champion for increasing access to pools and making sure that the relationship with the union enables there to be more lifeguards. We do have a timing issue. There were changes that were made to some of the work roles that were implemented in a way that could not impact this summer's lifeguard corps. But we do anticipate it will impact next year's lifeguard corps and we do expect to be able to make sure that we have the 1,500 lifeguards we need in place. We're already working on that and thinking about how we make sure that happens. That's the reality, when you don't have that many lifeguards, you will see pool closures. Our hope over the next year is to work with Parks, the Department of Education and others and make sure that we have those required number of lifeguards in place so that next summer, we're in a place where we can have pools open fully.

Moran: I would say the administration has been laser-focused on this issue. [They] redoubled their efforts, and made sure all the resources were there, whether it be the Making Waves program, Learn to Swim program, increased access through our permitting systems, but ultimately, making sure we have the resources to get these right. It is a goal of ours to get all pools operable. There is a commitment and this administration is focused on this issue. And we're very excited about our potential impacts as we get all these things in line.

Walcott: I was just going to add the sincerity of the commissioner in tackling this is just outstanding. She navigates through a variety of different issues to make sure that we are working together. And then also representing the mayor, the role of the mayor, and being very clear about this. So I think the administration without question gets it but beyond getting it, they have produced results as well. And those results will pay dividends as we move forward over the next number of years 

How do you feel things are now in terms of access to pools, swim safety and instruction for New Yorkers? and where do we go from here?

Greenberger: We want to be in a place where we are fully staffed in terms of lifeguards for next summer. That's a goal. It's an ambitious goal. But I think we can continue to achieve and push for it. Making sure that we're investing needed capital in our schools and in our public pools. Two pools are slated to open in the next 18 months. And so that continued infusion of capital to make sure that we are increasing access to pools has to be important. And finally, I would say we are really focused on what we call pipeline development for both lifeguards and swim instructors. When people come in to train to become a lifeguard and they don't pass, how are we working with them to make sure that the next time they come around, they pass? It's making sure that we're in that continuous mode of anticipating what the needs will be and making sure that we support eight and a half million New Yorkers who, on very hot summer days, want to go out and play.