An Amazing 24 Hours

Thursday, April 24, started as a typical busy day at Central High School’s swimming pool. Central ALTS graduates came early for Open Swim, followed by the final session of that week’s class and a visit from Brown-Forman’s Global Community Relations team who wanted to see the program in action. But the day turned out to be anything but typical.

On the fourth and final session of every learn-to-swim class, instructors introduce their students and explain where they started and what they’ve learned. Then the students show off their new skills as classmates and instructors cheer them on!

In the class pictured above, Central ALTS taught its 1,000th swimmer. This milestone was reached seven years after the program began in 2018. It’s a credit to the students who have continued to step up by becoming certified as instructors and volunteering in other ways to help the program grow and teach more swimmers every year.

To celebrate the occasion, everyone enjoyed co-founder Amy Benton’s cake following graduation!

Speaking of growing the program, William and Amy were blown away when - a few minutes after graduating the 1,000th student - Brown-Forman guests Carly Launius and LaWanda Page presented them with a check for $24,000! These funds will cover almost a year of paying Lead Instructors to organize everything involved in putting on swim classes.

The good news just kept coming…within the same 24 hours, Central ALTS was notified that they’d won a $10,000 grant from The Louisville Woman’s Club (see story in separate blog post). This money will be used exclusively to teach 100 women to swim

It was a great day to acknowledge how far Central ALTS has come, and to help ensure its continued success into the future.