Free Swimming Lessons In Westborough Part Of State Safety Push

WESTBOROUGH, MA — A Westborough swimming school this spring will participate in a state program that offers free lessons to young people, an effort to prevent drownings in the warmer months.

The state launched the Swim Safe Massachusetts program in 2021, setting aside $475,000 for nonprofits and private groups to offer free lessons. Westborough's British Swim School, located at Boston Sports Clubs, 1500 Union St., will be participating, Spectrum News reported this week.

At the same time, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation is boosting pay and offering bonuses to young people who work as lifeguards this summer. That follows a rise in drownings at the beginning of summer 2021 with 47 counted over the first half of the year.

That tally includes a 60-year-old man who drowned in a Shrewsbury pool in June, and the June deaths of Worcester officer Manny Familia and Troy Love, 14, the boy Familia was trying to rescue from a pond at Green Hill Park.

The free swimming lessons at British Swim School will be available at the school's Westborough, Paxton and Worcester through June 30, according to the report.