Save Charles City Indoor Pool
Donation protected
I want to start by thanking each of you for taking the time to read about this project. Draining and closing the Charles City Middle School Pool is a hot topic in my hometown. As many of you know swimming pools are not just for swim teams, but valuable assets to a thriving community
For those of you that don't know me or my story or my connection to the aquatics community I will try to just hit the cliff notes. My swimming career started in 1979 as a member of the Charles City Summer Swim Team. Back in those days, Sam Soifer, the school, and the City worked together to keep the cost of the program down and was probably the only reason my parents agreed to let me try. It cost $4 for me to be a member of the team that summer. I had two wonderful coaches Jane Whitehead and David Kirkland. To say that I wasn't very good would be an understatement, but the encouragement these two young coaches gave me helped to spark in me a passion that has impacted thousands of lives. It all started by chance in the Charles City Middle School Pool.
My swimming career took me all across the country and earned me a scholarship at Iowa State. Without swimming I can say that there would have been a better than 50% chance I would not have elected to go to college. My whole reason for going to college was to continue to pursue my dream of making the Olympic Team. Altough I never reached my ultimate swimming goal it opened up new educational opportunities for me. I continued my education at Creighton University where I earned my law degree and I would venture to say that without the goal setting and work ethic developed in my swimming endeavors I would have never dreamed of having attended law school.
After law school I figured that my connection to swimming would wane and eventually phase itself out of my life. To my amazement my life has continued on a path quite the opposite of what I expected. In the fall of 2000 Rick Noah and Ruth Smith where able to convince me to be the swim coach for the Charles City Girls High School Swim Team. That lead me to eventually coaching at the college level and over 10 years of club coaching. I have had the opportunity to work with swimmers on the U.S. National Team and other high level international swimmers. But more than that, I have had the opportunity to help educate thousands of young people not only in swimming, but also on life long skills that they will carry with them for life.
The cost of the Charles City Middle School Pool is significant, but I think that Charles City's rich history of working together as a community can help solve some of these problems. The pool is a classroom that currently is under utilized. I have been involved in helping communities better program a pool. No one entity in Charles City can completely program the pool to maximum capacity, but working together to offer not only swim lessons and swim team, but also having water therapy, diving programs, adult learning classes such as scuba, kayaking (since you have the great course), and water safety classes.
The pool when properly programed is a "Community" asset that helps attract families to communities. Along the way this asset can reach kids that otherwise may have gotten lost along the way. I am willing to offer up my help to try to solve the financial issues to this question. The lessons I learned in that pool have helped guide me as a contributing member of society and has helped create many of the best memories in my life. Please help fund me to be able to be able to save a pool and enturn pay it forward for the thousands of kids that will be able to use this facility in the future.
Again thanks for taking the time to read and in anyway that I can help solve these issues please let me know.
Tim Teeter
For those of you that don't know me or my story or my connection to the aquatics community I will try to just hit the cliff notes. My swimming career started in 1979 as a member of the Charles City Summer Swim Team. Back in those days, Sam Soifer, the school, and the City worked together to keep the cost of the program down and was probably the only reason my parents agreed to let me try. It cost $4 for me to be a member of the team that summer. I had two wonderful coaches Jane Whitehead and David Kirkland. To say that I wasn't very good would be an understatement, but the encouragement these two young coaches gave me helped to spark in me a passion that has impacted thousands of lives. It all started by chance in the Charles City Middle School Pool.
My swimming career took me all across the country and earned me a scholarship at Iowa State. Without swimming I can say that there would have been a better than 50% chance I would not have elected to go to college. My whole reason for going to college was to continue to pursue my dream of making the Olympic Team. Altough I never reached my ultimate swimming goal it opened up new educational opportunities for me. I continued my education at Creighton University where I earned my law degree and I would venture to say that without the goal setting and work ethic developed in my swimming endeavors I would have never dreamed of having attended law school.
After law school I figured that my connection to swimming would wane and eventually phase itself out of my life. To my amazement my life has continued on a path quite the opposite of what I expected. In the fall of 2000 Rick Noah and Ruth Smith where able to convince me to be the swim coach for the Charles City Girls High School Swim Team. That lead me to eventually coaching at the college level and over 10 years of club coaching. I have had the opportunity to work with swimmers on the U.S. National Team and other high level international swimmers. But more than that, I have had the opportunity to help educate thousands of young people not only in swimming, but also on life long skills that they will carry with them for life.
The cost of the Charles City Middle School Pool is significant, but I think that Charles City's rich history of working together as a community can help solve some of these problems. The pool is a classroom that currently is under utilized. I have been involved in helping communities better program a pool. No one entity in Charles City can completely program the pool to maximum capacity, but working together to offer not only swim lessons and swim team, but also having water therapy, diving programs, adult learning classes such as scuba, kayaking (since you have the great course), and water safety classes.
The pool when properly programed is a "Community" asset that helps attract families to communities. Along the way this asset can reach kids that otherwise may have gotten lost along the way. I am willing to offer up my help to try to solve the financial issues to this question. The lessons I learned in that pool have helped guide me as a contributing member of society and has helped create many of the best memories in my life. Please help fund me to be able to be able to save a pool and enturn pay it forward for the thousands of kids that will be able to use this facility in the future.
Again thanks for taking the time to read and in anyway that I can help solve these issues please let me know.
Tim Teeter
Organizer and beneficiary
Tim Teeter
Organizer
Charles City, IA
Charles City Swimming
Beneficiary
