DURHAM COUNTY, N.C. — One North Carolina man is on a mission to save lives through swim classes.
“My good friend Dr. Charlie van der Horst, unfortunately died during a marathon swim,” said Jonathan Klein, president of Swim for Charlie.
Klein says he lost his best friend in 2019 during the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim in New York.
“He had just completed a 15-mile swim. He went under the George Washington Bridge and slipped under the water,” explained Klein.
Two months later, Swim for Charlie was born.
The nonprofit organization teaches elementary school students in Orange and Durham counties how to swim free of charge.
Klein is the president of the organization. He says his friend Charlie did so much for the world, so he wanted to do something for him.
“We plan on having over 1,200 students go through the water,” Klein said.
Klein’s mission is to provide a high-quality water safety program to North Carolina second grade students.
Klein says 80% of children who come from a household with an income of $50,000 or less have little-to-no swimming ability.
“If they were put in the deep end of this pool, they would drown,” explained Klein.
Klein says in the past Black and Latinos weren’t always allowed to swim in public pools, leaving parents and grandparents unable to swim.
And that, he says, got passed down from generation to generation.
“65% of Black children, 45% of Latino and 40% white children do not have water safety ability,” said Klein.
This may explain why Black people drown at a rate 1.5 times higher than white people, according to the USA Swimming Foundation.
“You want to break that cycle,” Klein said.
As a retired family physician, Klein says he loves to help children, especially the vulnerable population.
He says moving forward, he hopes other North Carolina school districts follow his lead by getting the community together for a greater cause.
Swim for Charlie has 80 to 100 instructors and partners with eight pools. They also provide eight lessons over two weeks. Each lesson is 40 minutes long.