Jaime Gonek can’t remember what happened to the yellow jacket she had as a child, which was adorned with sewn-on swimming badges she had earned through years of teaching with the Canadian Red Cross.
But the Edmonton-based fitness trainer still remembers how it made her feel — and those memories came flooding back this week when she heard the Canadian Red Cross was scrapping the program at the end of the year.
“My goodness, did I wear that thing with pride,” said Gonek, laughing.
“I vividly remember taking the card (after taking the test at the end of a lesson) and feeling whether the badge was in there or not, because that’s how you knew you’d passed. And yes, I saved them all.”
The Canadian Red Cross announced earlier this month that it would “phase out” its swimming and lifeguard classes by 2022, and said it was increasing its focus on disaster relief, pandemic response, reducing opioid harm and caring for the elderly judge.
The transition marks the end of a program that has taught millions of Canadians about water safety over a 75-year period.
Those like Gonek who participated in the program in the 1980s and 1990s received water level safety badges after completing each phase of instruction. The eight marks were small, square blobs outlining a swimmer on colored waves with the Red Cross symbol at the top left.
Each color denoted the level the swimmer completed, starting with yellow and progressing to orange, red, maroon, blue, green, gray and white – for those who mastered rescue breathing, sideswimming and a 500 meter endurance swim.
The color badge program ended in 1996, although students continued to earn patches of other designs.
Gonek began the program in the early to mid ’80s at age seven and earned all eight suit badges before progressing through the lifeguard program. She eventually joined her high school swim team and competed in triathlons as an adult. Now she is training lower fitness swimmers for their first triathlons.
Gonek said her love of swimming began as a child with her first Red Cross class in Edmonton, about an hour’s drive from where she was born in Smoky Lake, Alta.
“My parents didn’t trust the people who taught classes out by the lake, so we used to go to Edmonton every weekend,” she said. “I was a total water baby. They always had a hard time getting me out.”
Gonek said she was “nostalgic” and “a little sad” to hear the Canadian Red Cross program is ending, but the organization’s swimming and rescue classes will transition into other forms.
The Canadian Red Cross said it is encouraging its water safety partners to transition to swimming and lifeguard programs with Lifesaving Society Canada later this year.
Red Cross swimming and lifeguard training will also continue in First Nations communities as part of the Red Cross’s framework for indigenous peoples, the organization said.
Rishona Hyman, owner of Winnipeg’s Aqua Essence Swim Academy, said she was “shocked” to hear about the closure of the program and called it “the best-kept secret in aquaristics.”
Hyman’s Academy has been one of the Canadian Red Cross’ training partners since it opened in 2002. Their instructors will be going through crossover programs this year to teach Lifesaving Society Canada lesson plans.
“At the end of the day, they both teach swimming lessons, but there’s no question that it’s a different program,” Hyman said. “But … if you enroll your child in swimming lessons, you probably won’t notice the difference. ”
Hyman said the Canadian Red Cross is trying to ease the transition for instructors, but believes the termination of the programs was “another blow to the aquarium hobby” after a difficult pandemic that has seen many pools overflow for the past two years long stretches remained closed.
Canadian Red Cross CEO Conrad Sauvé said in a Jan. 12 statement the decision to halt the programs was due to “regular assessments” of the organization’s services and “evolving humanitarian needs.”
The Red Cross swimming and lifeguard programs began in 1946, and the organization claims to have provided water training and skills to more than 40 million Canadians.
Hyman took swimming lessons with the Canadian Red Cross as a child, adding that she still has all her water safety program badges.
“I remember getting my red and my green and my gray and being very proud,” she said. “Even as a small child, I could see that this was part of something bigger.
“There was one thing in common – everyone could talk about their Red Cross badges. It was like an identity.”
– Melissa Couto Zuber, The Canadian Press
to swim
