Kicking Back at the MAC

At first, Lauren E. Sancken ’05 did not think that the After School Swim Program for Cambridge students she founded as a junior would thrive.

To start, there was school bureaucracy, then the question of who would handle the liabilities associated with supervising kids in a swimming pool, and of course, how to recruit volunteers.

“Starting something like that, you don’t realize how many hoops there are to go through until you’re already doing it,” said Sancken, now a consultant at The Connections Group, a political consulting company based in Seattle.

“There were a lot of concerns of ‘Is this really worth my time? And ‘Is this going to get me a better job?” she said. “I got this from a lot of people who ultimately decided that they’d rather be in the advertising club.”

But three years later, After School Swim is one of a number of growing programs bringing Harvard and Cambridge students together.

Assistant Principal for the Maria L. Baldwin School John Roderick said that Harvard students also run the Spanish Acquisition Beginning in Elementary School program and Hoops, which teaches students the fundamentals of basketball, for his students. Roderick said that a science and engineering club was also on the horizon.

He said that as more Harvard students talked about their experiences working with Cambridge kids, even more wanted to play a part.

“Our relationship with Harvard undergraduate students is growing and growing and growing,” Roderick said. “The kids get a lot out of it.”

The After School Swim program, which works with children in grades four through six at the Baldwin School—a kindergarten through eighth grade Cambridge public school—is a part of the Youth Recreation Program at the Phillips Brooks House Association.

Each Monday at 3 p.m., four or five undergraduates gather outside of the Science Center to walk over to the school—located less than a mile north of Annenberg—to meet the program participants and walk them to the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC) where they swim until 5 p.m.

Two weeks ago, more than 30 elementary students held onto the sides of the MAC’s pool and kicked their feet while the Harvard students looked on. During the course of the afternoon, participants also swum across the pool repeatedly and engaged in games of Marco Polo and cannon ball.

Sancken, who concentrated in History of Science, said she started the program to provide kids with basic swimming skills and also to have a real impact on their lives.

“I think because swimming is such a dynamic experience between instructors and kids, those kids who are swimming for the first time are really making themselves vulnerable,” she said. “I think you can really be in a position where these kids put their trust in you and their confidence in you and you can influence the decisions that they’re making.”

Anne S. Waters ’07, who ran the program from January 2005 to June 2006, said that After School Swim was an equalizer. Cambridge students in the program include both the children of professors and dining hall workers.

“It’s for everybody,” she said. “It’s a sport that everyone should be able to enjoy.”

“It’s not something that a lot of kids have access to if they don’t live near a pool or if it’s not something that their family does,” said Waters, who learned how to swim when she was a toddler and joined a swim team at the age of five.

Paul G. Hamm ’07 also said that helping out with the program was a nice change of pace.

“We can just get so distracted with papers and tests and midterms and this little Harvard life,” said Hamm, who has previously worked as a swim instructor during his summers home in the DC area. “There’s more to Cambridge than just Harvard.”

Lindsey A. Gilligan ’08, who directs the program this semester, also said After School Swim was a good way to see another side of Cambridge.

“It’s a great thing to do if you have a small amount of time and you want to give something back,” she said.

But while the routine of the swimming program has been settled over the last few weeks, come spring, the program will have to make some changes.

Last month, the Department of Athletics announced that the MAC will be closed from late March until October 2007 to complete renovations.

Gilligan said that while she had not finalized the program’s plans for the spring, she was considering other options such as using the pool at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Cambridge’s only public high school.

Waters said that other alternatives included temporarily using the Blodgett pool or starting the program up again in January, instead of February. But she said that no matter what Gilligan decided to do, she hoped After School Swim could complete the year.

“I’m sure it will continue beyond when I graduate, but I’d like to be able to finish it off for sure on my end,” Waters said.

—Staff writer Laura A. Moore can be reached at lamoore@fas.harvard.edu.