SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KTIV) -
It's been a hot summer, and some Siouxland kids are getting a chance to cool off in the pool.
They are learning how to swim, thanks to one man's legacy.
Splashing around with arm and back floaties, these four and five year olds are here for their first swimming lesson.
"They'll begin work on breast-stroke, back float assisted and even introductory work for backstroke. They'll even get to start on butterfly," Karen Taylor Burton, Siouxland Aquatics said.
Through the years, a variety of funding sources have helped bring kids from the Crittenton Center's Stella Sanford Child Development Center to swimming lessons for free.
Along the way, Karen's husband, Rich Burton, helped her with Siouxland Aquatics and the different programs.
We would go have lunches with them. You know see how the kids were doing in their classrooms not only as well as here at the pool and that connection has been made real for us," Taylor Burton said.
Last year, due to lack of grant funding, the kids did not get swimming lessons.
Soon after, Rich was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away quickly.
With the same lack of funding for the swimming lessons, Karen and her family had an idea.
"This year, we will make it a memorial swim, in memory of Rich, my husband, who loved the children of Stella so dearly," Taylor Burton said.
The Rich Burton Memorial fund has given 80 kids a chance splash around in the pool this year. Something Karen says Rich would have wanted.
"Through these children, we still see him and his life and the importance of all of us being here and knowing that we can make a difference in the lives of children that don't have an opportunity, any other way," Taylor Burton said.
Soon the kids will know their strokes, all thanks to the legacy of one man.
The kids from the Crittenton's Stella Sanford Child Development Center get to take lessons twice a week for four weeks.
