STUART, Fla. \u2014 Residents packed a Martin County joint commission meeting on Tuesday, calling on local leaders to open the pool at Martin County High School to the public as an affordable resource for swim education.<\/p>\n
Among those who spoke was Patty Beonde, whose brother drowned at 30 years old.<\/p>\n
WATCH WPTV’S COVERAGE BELOW:<\/p>\n
Martin County residents push to open high school pool for public swim education<\/p>\n
“He had never been a good swimmer. He never had lessons, really,” said Beonde.<\/p>\n
She said her brother was caught in an undertow. She wants more people to have access to a swimming pool so they can become comfortable in the water.<\/p>\n
She said, “We’re surrounded by water. People need to learn how to swim. We have too many drownings.”<\/p>\n
Those with the nonprofit Martin Swims asked local leaders to put a referendum on the November ballot that would create a fund to establish community pools. They suggested residents pay less than $10 a year per property to fund the pool on the Martin County High School campus.<\/p>\n
Ricki Stein, a Martin County resident, said free access is key to getting children comfortable in the water.<\/p>\n
“Free swims where kids can just get in with their families is so important because kids learn through play,” said Stein.<\/p>\n
Dick Landrum, another Martin County resident, said affordability is central to the effort.<\/p>\n
“We have a lot of venues in Martin County\u2014several venues in Martin County that teach people how to swim. Most of them are a little bit costly, perhaps. We want it to be free. We want it to be a community service,” said Landrum.<\/p>\n
Both county and school district leaders expressed a level of support for the idea.<\/p>\n
Martin County Commissioner Ed Ciampi recognized that the benefits of swim education extend well beyond childhood.<\/p>\n
“If you teach a child to swim, then they’re an adult that also knows how to swim,” said Ciamipi. “I’m all in favor of letting the public decide on the importance of swimming education.”<\/p>\n
Martin County School District Superintendent Michael Maine said he is already making plans to set up a meeting with Martin Swims to explore the logistics.<\/p>\n
“Well, from the school district’s perspective, I think it’s just finding out what their wants are, what their desires are, what can we feasibly, as a school district, do,” said Maine.<\/p>\n
Those with Martin Swims feel the issue should be determined by the public and hope to move quickly to get it on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
Dr. Blanche Wells, president of Martin Swims, said the cause is personal and urgent.<\/p>\n
She said, “It’s something that as lifelong swimmers we’re devoted to. It’s life-saving.”<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART, Fla. \u2014 Residents packed a Martin County joint commission meeting on Tuesday, calling on local leaders to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,1160,129298,129299,171,173,172,179,12758],"class_list":["post-309954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-florida","tag-martin-county","tag-martin-county-joint-meeting","tag-martin-swims","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-treasure-coast","tag-wptv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}