Hello former City of Waukesha lifeguards/swim instructors,
 
My name is Jim Young. I’m a former guard and instructor at the City of Waukesha’s Buchner Pool during the summers of 1976 through 1983. Shortly after those years I became more aware of and then involved in supporting treaty rights, civil rights, anti-racism efforts and economic justice initiatives. This past year was a devastating year for so many people around the globe with the pandemic and escalating racist attacks and killings, then of course the white supremacist violence in our streets and mob attack on our federal capitol. The basic inequalities and injustice still faced by people of color in our communities became so starkly apparent once again that I had to find a way to foster some good will.
 
Trying to personally address these inequalities at a very basic person-to-person level, I decided to make a $500 donation to the City of Waukesha’s PRF Department for them to use specifically as grant money to provide free pool passes and learn to swim lessons for Waukesha residents who are people of color. It’s a basic recognition of the problems and a minor reparation. I realize that this will have only a small impact in the Waukesha community, a few families and individual children at best, so I thought to invite other former guards to join me in this initiative to make its benefits more far reaching.
 
Therefore, I created a GoFundMe fundraiser initiative, asking for your civic and financial support of these goals: increased access to City of Waukesha community pool recreational programs for people of color and perhaps in a few years, more people of color working as City lifeguards. Let’s call this the “Legacy Lifeguards’ ‘Pools of Community’ Grants” initiative as I’ll explain below.  
 
My Appeal to You as Former Lifeguards:
The new Buchner Community Pool & Center is steadily taking shape/nearing completion during this time of upheaval. I just heard about the City’s Grand Opening celebration on Saturday, June 12 a few weeks ago … and it made me want to contribute to that celebration somehow. Thus, I decided to make a financial donation to the City of Waukesha to facilitate more access to the pools, the learn to swim programs or lifeguard training for Waukesha residents who are people of color. An initial $500 donation from my wife and I seemed like a good place to start. Then after looking at the City’s website, I realized my donation could only pay for either a few group (family) pool passes ($130 each), a dozen learn to swim lessons ($39 each) or possibly a smaller combination of both. Right away, I wanted to make this more relevant to the evolving Waukesha community of color. I immediately thought about our community, the former lifeguard community as a source for a larger donation toward this effort. Then in thinking about how to make this appeal, a name for it emerged – a “Legacy Lifeguards’ ‘Pools of Community’ Grants” initiative. After some additional research over the past two weeks, I realize that Grand Opening celebration is just a month away now.
 
As such, I’m requesting your financial donations to this “Legacy Lifeguards’ ‘Pools of Community’ Grants” initiative via GoFundMe over the next few weeks to raise and then donate a minimum of $3,000 as an acknowledgement that “we” stand in support of the Waukesha community of multiple ethnicities, and specifically, our neighbors who are people of color. When our GoFundMe donations are tallied on June 11, we can present the City of Waukesha a check on June 12 to be dedicated to these grants of free group (family) pool passes, learn to swim lessons, and if not this year, lifeguard trainings for some young adults of color who advance through the learn to swim program over the coming years. I envision that being facilitated through both the City’s Financial Assistance Program and outright grants to families and individuals of color. It may not end up being a huge sum of money in consideration for this initiative to the total pools operating budget, but I'd like the City to be encouraged to continue to expand on this goal and get some recognition for trying to eliminate these ongoing inequalities.
 
Finally, I called Mayor Reilly a couple of weeks back. He’ll be at the Grand Opening Celebration June 12 and wondered if some former guards wanted to be there too when our donation is presented. City PRF staff offered us a chance to participate in the celebration by making a public statement to promote use of the grant money. With my COVID vaccination settled in, I’m going to participate. Are you able to join us? That provides us with an excellent opportunity to participate in and practice community building.
 
Thank you for this consideration,
 
Jim
 
Additional Background Info Regarding the Initiative:
First of all, Buchner pool was my summer home as a child. It fostered independence and joy. Then to date, the Buchner/Horeb Pool gig ranks as the best job of my life for so many reasons. Like many of you, I made great friends and memories at the Waukesha pools. I also made many mistakes to grow and learn from as a human being, a friend and neighbor. It was foundational in blending teamwork and responsibility with opportunities to grow as a young adult. As such, I’ve always appreciated that “life loved” at the pools, through expanding my understanding of what community and an extended family could be.
 
Life loved turned into life lived for me. The different adventures and new exposures to life outside of Waukesha and WI  brought unexpected challenges to my understanding of “us and them” (as Pink Floyd famously informed us) and “liberty and justice for all” which we often pledge, but rarely hold each other and our institutions to.
 A needed turbulence arose inside of me over the intervening years tolook at life and culture around me before knowing how to understand the feelings of life, sorrow and love within me. Primarily, I acknowledged my privilege as a white male, the associated ongoing inequalities in access to our society’s civic systems, economic/social injustices based on racism and class, and my role as an enabler if I wasn’t going to be an active “stands with” advocate for my neighbors of color, especially those whom I don’t even know.
 
That whirlwind of internal questions and concerns culminated in 2020 for me as clearer answers flowed in from actions observed and acknowledgements of who we are as a people came together, rolling straight through a year of malaise from a global pandemic, race-based killings, and ever present political and societal mayhem. Now it’s spring 2021 and I keep thinking “what can I/we do as individuals to break this cycle at the personal and inter-personal structural levels?” With inspiration from many sources such as Democracy Now and Madison365, I settled on reaching out to my/our neighbors to begin to rebuild our community connections and respect as a first step.
 
To rekindle some flame to spirit and a connection with my ever-expanding notion of the circle of community, I wanted to find a way to show both my appreciation for the privileges I experienced in being a member of the City of Waukesha lifeguard/instruction team and my acknowledgement that access to this privilege wasn’t shared equally. With the historic and ongoing expressions of animosity toward people of color (POC) in our country, past (current?) housing discrimination/redlining that kept POC from moving into the City of Waukesha while I/we lived/worked there, and the growing acknowledgement for needed calls for creating systems that facilitate lived racial justice, equity and reparations, I thought that the planned Grand Opening of the new Buchner Community Pool & Center this June could be a perfect opportunity to express both my/our "community" with POC and support for the Waukesha PRF's swimming pool programs' ongoing efforts to expand access to recreational opportunities for all. 
 
All of this personal background leads to this appeal to you here.