Program stays afloat for now

The community pulled together a swim-a-thon to save its access to the Huntington Beach High School Aquatics Facility and raised enough money to keep it open for a few more months, but not enough the fill the budget gap.

Firefighters, Junior Lifeguards, residents and more than 70 swimmers came out Sunday to keep the facility from closing its doors to the community or doubling its fees to fill a budget gap. The residents raised $7,000, and another $1,000 pledged is expected to come in.

If all $8,000 comes in, it puts the event just $500 shy of its $8,500 goal to keep the pool open for the next year. Sylvia Garrett, one of the members of a committee to save the program, said she thinks they will have enough money to keep it open through the summer.

“We got damn close, really damn close,” Garrett said.

Community Services Director Jim Engle said the money raised will keep the facility open for a while, and he plans to meet with the committee and the Huntington Beach Union High School District’s superintendent to talk about different options.

Residents use the facility to swim laps four days a week and do Aqua Aerobics classes Tuesdays and Thursdays. The police and fire departments and the Junior Lifeguards use the facility for conditioning programs.

The Junior Lifeguards came out in force to help raise funds. They swam laps to raise money and worked the event by counting laps.

“All the lifeguards use the pool to swim,” Junior Lifeguards instructor John Deakers said. “We wanted to support this.”

The swim-a-thon isn’t the first time residents have come out to support the facility. The “Take the Plunge” fundraising project raised $2 million to build the facility. Garrett said more than 2,000 residents made donations for the pool, and now they might not get to use it.

“The community will be very upset that those that donated for a community pool won’t have access,” Garrett said.

The event brought out amateur and Olympic hopefuls alike. Huntington Beach resident Micha Burden swam 300 laps and won the prize for swimming the most laps. Burden, an Olympic hopeful for open water swimming, said she swims around that many every day.

Although Burden doesn’t train in Huntington, she said it is nice to have somewhere local to practice.

“I think it’s important for the community to have a place to swim,” she said.