finally tonight it's the leading cause of unintentional death for young children and affects black and brown kids at higher rates drowning it kills nearly a thousand children every year in the US but a summer safety Camp hosted by the Boys and Girls Club in the pic area is reaching hundreds of kids teaching swim lessons and life-saving skills so they don't have to choose between fun in the water and the risks that come with it Raven Santana visited the camp to see how it's working we're going to show you how to wear the life saving jacket and we're going to jump in the water okay nearly 100 students ages 6 through 10 participated in a 4-day water safety camp at the Boys and Girls Club in Pake the first group included 7-year-old Skyler Hado who says she didn't know how to swim before attending the ZAC foundation's water safety and drowning prevention program now she has her eyes set on a new challenge to swim in the like deep I the program which focuses on teaching students how to swim and other life-saving skills was fully funded by the ZAC Foundation the foundation was established in 2008 by Karen and Brian con after the loss of their 6-year-old son Zachary Archer Cohn in a pool drain entrapment in their backyard swimming pool so drowning is the leading cause of death in children ages 1 to 4 and the second leading cause of death in children 5 to 14 and 5 to 18y olds are exactly the population that we serve Jane ha is the chief development officer of the Boys and Girls Club of pic she says the comprehensive program splits campers into three groups to learn a variety of skills classroom instruction on water safety they're also going to receive instruction from local First Responders and also in the pool they're going to have pool time they're going to learn techniques like floating and also swimming 10 yold Luna Dominguez has been coming to the Boys and Girls Club for more than 5 years and credits the program for making her a better swimmer I'm learning how to swim a lot I want to get like a scholarship so I can swim because I love swimming and I love water it was really fun for me and I had a lot of fun and now it's going back to my little brother Liam because now he's learning how to swim and I'm so proud of it I think the first thing that's important to know is that black and brown communities at are at a way higher risk for drowning and uh water safety incidents so we are trying to address that because that's the community that we serve here we're 70% Hispanic and latinx communities um the majority of our staff do have some familiarity with Spanish and many are bilingual including our Aquatics director the feel is coming from somebody that almost just reflecting than than sell on me you know saying so they're literally like oh he can do this we can do it too in addition to learning how to swim children are also taught how to help others who may find themselves in danger after entering the water.

Yesterday we learned the skill like reach and throw don't go like you literally use something that is around your area is friend of yours is maybe drowning you can aware The Lifeguard real quick if the Lifeguard is far away you can look for something nearby that you can reach out to that person you don't go in the water stay in the safety position for yourself on the deck and help him out the kid to or your friend to get back to the pool deck a lot of our kids are when they are learning how to swim it's either do swim lessons here or through the opportunities they have in the summer to have swimming a lot of times the boys and girls Hub is known for being the place where kids learn how to swim so we ensure that that's something that's available to them we try and make sure that access is there for them to be able to learn how to swim here for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana [Music]