Wednesday, 18 May 2011: Community Swim, the cornerstone project of Sir John Walker’s Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation, marked a major milestone today with its 200,000th swim lesson for Manukau youngsters.

The 200,000th swim lesson had even greater significance as it occurred within days of the third anniversary of the launch of the Foundation back on May 12 2008 with then Manukau City Mayor Len Brown, now the new Mayor of Auckland Council, and Sir John Walker key participants in the ceremony at the Otara Leisure Centre.

The milestone swim lesson coincided with the day East Tamaki Primary School plunged into the Otara Leisure Centre pools for its Community Swim sessions and the youngster selected as the 200,000th swim lesson participant was Year 5 pupil, Tahitanga Ripia.

Community Swim is the Foundation’s ground-breaking initiative that provides FREE lessons to Year 3, 4 and 5 pupils in Manukau, in partnership with Manukau Leisure Services and Swimsation.

Since Wakaaranga and Yendarra Primary Schools participated in a ‘pilot’ programme during Term Two in 2008, growing to 21 schools by the end of that year, more than 28,000 youngsters from 84 Manukau primary schools have been involved in the programme.

By the end of this year it will have delivered just under 270,000 lessons to more than 38,000 youngsters.

According to Mayor Brown those statistics “which were hard for anyone to imagine would be achieved when we launched the Foundation three years ago, are a tribute to the vision of Sir John, a champion athlete and a champion New Zealander, the energy of the Foundation’s board and staff and the enthusiasm of Manukau Leisure Services and the schools in the programme.

“Above all they are testament to what can be reached when you set out to achieve a dream as we did in Manukau three years ago.”

The Foundation has since gone on to develop six further sporting and recreational activities, all designed to achieve three key goals:

- Ensure all young people in Manukau are provided every opportunity to achieve a healthy lifestyle and maximize their potential through sports and physical recreation.

- Create a pathway to success in sport and physical recreation through participation in clubs and programmes.

- Develop future sporting champions.

Chief Executive, Craig Pollock, says the Foundation has been fortunate that its programme delivery and funding partners “have shared our vision of providing the opportunities for young people to pursue their sporting dream. And there is no better demonstration of that partnership than our Community Swim programme, where Manukau Leisure Services are every day delivering a wonderful programme with the assistance of dedicated swim instructors, funded by very generous support from The Lion Foundation who meet the cost of FREE swim lessons for all youngsters and four buses which transport pupils to and from the lessons.

“The result of 200,000 FREE swim lessons since the programme began just over three years ago is clear evidence to us that while Find Your Field of Dreams is still Manukau-based, Sir John’s vision of providing youngsters with the opportunity to engage in sport and recreational activity can work with equal success elsewhere,” he says.

Michael Groom, Eastern Region Manager for Manukau Leisure Services, says one of the most encouraging aspects of Community Swim has been the increase in participation at school and inter-school swimming competitions. “This can be directly attributed to Community Swim where children start to become not only more confident, but competent in the water. And we understand Manurewa Swim Club have grown their junior membership by as much as 20%, which they put down to the success of the Community Swim programme.”

Which is exactly the response the Olympic 1500 gold medallist says he was after from the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation. “I wanted to get as many young people as possible involved in sport, and stay in sport like I did,” says Sir John.

“As well as providing a healthier lifestyle for young people, sport also offers the opportunity for them to succeed at another level. It will require hard work and dedication, but as I found out, it is a great dream to pursue.”

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Sir John Walker and Auckland Mayor Len Brown join East Tamaki Primary School
9-year-old Tahitanga Ripia at Otara Leisure Centre pool to mark his selection as the Manukau youngster to participate in the 200,000th Community Swim programme lesson.

ENDS

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