How to help
The most useful thing you can do today is be counted.
As we talk with schools, municipalities, foundations and other potential partners, one of the first questions will be how much community interest exists. Adding your name and ZIP code helps us begin answering that question.
We are not asking you for money.
Friends of Washtenaw County Aquatics is an unincorporated volunteer committee. We have not applied for or received 501(c)(3) status, so a gift to us would not be tax-deductible and we're not set up to hold funds responsibly. We're not taking any. If you'd like us to come back to you when that changes, there's a box for that in the form below — it commits you to nothing and collects no payment details.
Four ways in
Pick whichever one is true for you
One minute
Add your name
Get occasional updates — no more than monthly — and be counted as a county resident who wants this. A broad supporter list helps us demonstrate that interest extends across Washtenaw County, and gives future partners a way to measure community demand.
A few hours a month
Volunteer a skill
We especially need grant writing, municipal finance, land use and zoning, architecture and construction, communications, translation, and people willing to run a table at a farmers market or school event.
An introduction
Connect us
To a school district, a township recreation department, a swim club, an employer, a foundation program officer, or anyone who has built or run an aquatics facility. Warm introductions move this faster than anything else.
Later
Tell us you'd support it
A non-binding indication of interest, so that when we do have the legal structure to accept gifts, we have some idea of what the base looks like. No money changes hands now and no payment details are collected.
Count me in
Tell us who you are
Everything except your email is optional. The ZIP code matters more than you'd think — showing support spread across the whole county, not just one city, is a large part of the argument.
What we do with this
We keep your name, email, and ZIP code on a contact list used only for FWCA updates and for showing aggregate, anonymous support counts by area. We don't sell it, share it, or hand it to any other organization. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to delete you at any time by replying to one.
Right now, today
Four things that help and don't involve us at all
Put a kid in lessons
The county's existing pools run learn-to-swim programs today, and several offer scholarships. Washtenaw County Parks, the City of Ann Arbor, Saline Recreation, and your local school district are the places to start. The full list is here.
Learn yourself, if you never did
More than half of American adults have never taken a swimming lesson. Adult beginner classes exist here and they are full of people in exactly your position. Nobody is watching.
Join a swim team or a Masters program
Youth club teams and adult Masters programs already train in this area, in whatever water they can find. Joining one is real, immediate support for the sport this project is trying to make room for.
Stay involved locally
School boards, cities, townships and parks departments regularly make decisions that affect aquatics and recreation. When those issues come up, informed residents can help make sure access to swimming is part of the conversation.