ROCKPORT — Aquatic Director Ben St. Cyr reports that PenBay Y has won a competitive grant from the national Swimming Saves Lives Foundation.

This April, the foundation will pay the full cost of adult swim lessons at the Y.

The story started last August with local swimming standouts Susan Rardin of Lincolnville and Ellen O’Donnell of Warren taking a trip to Montreal and competing at the World Masters’ Championships. They found out about US Masters’ Swimming’s learn-to-swim program and decided to try to bring it home.

Late last year, Rardin and O’Donnell travelled to USMS’s competition and training program in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Successful, they are bringing the first Swimming Saves Lives program to northern New England, specifically to PenBay Y in Rockport.

Trained as trainers in Great Barrington, Rardin and O’Donnell will train local members of the Mid-Coast Masters swim group how to teach adults to swim. That training will be in March.

In April, adults can choose five from 10 personalized learning sessions at the Y. In order to accommodate adults with different schedules, sessions will be scheduled Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m., Thursdays at noon, and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m.

Navy doctor Arthur Ransom founded US Masters’ Swimming in 1970 to give older swimmers (ex-competitors and beginners alike) a goal for keeping physically fit. It is now a nationwide organization of nearly 60,000 adult swimmers. While only about 30% ever compete, USMS has tended to concentrate on the most competitive. Swimming Saves Lives is USMS’s effort to get back to Dr. Ransom’s original broad vision.

And to address a serious national problem!

On average, 3,880 Americans drown every year, more than 10 every day.

Eight of those 10 are adults.

A shocking 37% of adults can’t even swim 25 yards — one length of the PenBay Y pool. In nationwide statistics, lobstermen, yacht owners and others, who are around the water a great deal, like most Mainers, don’t do better than the average.

So is the PenBay Y’s April Swimming Saves Lives for you? If you are an adult and don’t swim at all, are afraid of the water or are a really weak swimmer, definitely yes.

If you are afraid of water, that’s sensible. Drowning, after all, is the fifth national cause of unintentional injury death. Don’t let it happen to you.

But, the April program is also for you if you would just like to swim better, more efficiently, without working so hard. More than a dozen Mid-Coast Masters’ volunteers, all outstanding local master swimmers, are being trained to work with adults who are afraid, who are beginners, but also those who just want to swim better.

To learn more and sign up, contact Susan Rardin at susanrardin@gmail.com or 505-0588, or Ben St. Cyr at bstcyr@penbayymca.org or 236-3375.

The price is certainly right. Swimming Saves Lives will pick up all the cost. You even get a free, 30-day US Masters’ Swimming membership so that their insurance will cover you, and free access to PenBay Y. You just have to get yourself to and from the Rockport Y and provide your own swimsuit.

Reach the sports department at: sports@penbaypilot.com.