This year marks the 10^th anniversary of Swim & Gym, a kinesiology program that helps Ames children stay active while giving ISU students opportunities to volunteer and gain valuable experience.

Kinesiology lecturer Jennifer Smith has led the Swim & Gym program since 2009 after her involvement with it throughout her undergraduate and graduate years. Smith said that the program was started by her advising professor in 2004 as a way to interact with the community that would include children.

“It’s always been a goal to keep it very much affordable, so every socioeconomic status could participate,” Smith said. “[My advising professor] had that mission for it to be an outreach program that could help with physical activity levels… Also, I think that she just realized that we had resources. We had the people who wanted to help with it, and we had plenty … who would benefit from participating.”

Swim & Gym meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Forker Building and hosts a variety of gym and pool activities for kids ages five to 12.

Even though there are lots of opportunities for the kids to stay involved throughout the semester, there are also plenty of opportunities for ISU students to become involved as volunteers. The program is open to anyone who is going into any area of teaching.

“I really want students to get as much experience as possible [by] implementing activities they want to try, implementing lesson plans [and] trying things out … so that they have that confidence with what they’re doing before they student teach,” Smith said. “That career-based experience early on is really beneficial for those who choose to help and work for the program.”

Katelyn Holland, senior in kinesiology and health, has been with the Swim & Gym program for three semesters now and has been using this experience to help in her classes as well.

“I’ve learned a lot being able to see what works and what doesn’t work, and this is more of a neutral area to test out those things,” Holland said. “We can test out lesson plans that we have to present for classes… so, you can kind of tweak them and make them better.”

Swim & Gym also prepares students for learning how to deal with children before they graduate and have to work with children on a full-time basis.

“It gives me a lot of practice with dealing with different situations, especially when kids are not listening and being ornery,” said Dwaine Hegland, senior in kinesiology and health. “It gets you prepared for situations you might run into in the future.”

For students who don’t have time either Tuesday or Thursday to volunteer with Swim & Gym or want another option, there is also a paid Summer Youth Fitness program that starts in June and runs for eight weeks into July. This program runs Mondays through Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m. and involves physical education activities, gymnastics and swimming.

Students who are interested in either program should contact Jennifer Smith for more information or look on ISU’s Student Job Board for postings about the summer opportunity.