Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
A new indoor and heated swimming facility is coming to Prattville, where the only focus of the facility will be swim lessons, aquatic education and aquatic safety. While construction is underway and set to open Spring of 2024, SwimPrep LLC is currently taking reservations for swim lessons for as soon as construction allows, which could be as soon as April or May of this year, owners confirm.
Owned by Jeffrey and Rebecca Nichols, a husband-and-wife pair, that have owned the SwimPrep business in the Prattville and Montgomery area since 2015, where they have rented pool space for their lessons previously in the area. Now, they will have their own facility.
“Swim lessons are our top thing; we’ll have other things available from birthday party space to mommy and me classes for small infants. The ones that are walking they learn not only survival, but they learn to swim, if they’re walking, they can swim,” Rebecca said.
The pair have a deep passion for safety and teach the fundamentals of swimming to children as young as 6 months. But Jeffrey stated there really isn’t an age limit to learning how to swim.
“Jeffrey loves kids and he just has that coach mentality, this is what he’s meant to do, I’ll be on the land-side of it and he’ll be on the water side,” Rebecca said with a laugh.
“We would love to get to the point where we can even have community type events where we bring in a specialist to teach infant CPR and do some pool safety, for at home, alarms, fences and layers of protection at home. That’s what’s needed, as many layers between the child and the pool as possible because drowning is the number one cause of accidental death of under four,” Rebecca said.
According to the CDC, drowning is the leading cause of death for children under the age of five. This is where the Nichols have stemmed their education for aquatic safety to children, and through their lessons the main focus, at first, is honing in survival skills to keep the airway out of the water in stressful situations.
“A lot of people say,‘oh well we don’t have a pool and it’s not summer,’ but there’s so much water around us, and a bathtub even. Lakes, ponds, there’s so many around. All it takes is a second, we just want to make more people aware of it, we are so blessed to be where we are,” Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey has always loved to swim since he was a young kid, and being in the Boy Scouts and doing activities outside growing up only solidified his love for water. Jeffrey left his career of 20 years to follow his passion of teaching and coaching kinds in learning how to swim.
The couple chose Prattville as they have patrons from all over, Rebecca stated they have parents from Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Clanton and of course locally, but they chose this spot because the location of the facility is so close to the interstate. SwimPrep is located just off Cobbs Ford Road, on Old Farmlane.
“I think a lot of what makes us different is personality. This isn’t a job to me, I get to play, and have fun and be a kid again, and give someone a lifelong skill that could potentially save their life,” Jeffrey said.
The lessons will be on a strict one on one basis, where instructors will spend 10 minutes teaching survival skills first, and then going more into the fineness of how to swim.
“One thing we do is that we stress the survival part, and everyone has to ‘test out,’ fully clothed. I can’t tell you how many times this time of year we get a text from a mom that says my kid fell in the lake or a pond, with a jacket and boots on, and by the time I got to them they were already floating. I get chill bumps thinking about it. Not that it happens regularly but it happens enough, and just thank you Lord that they recalled what we taught them,” Rebecca said.
Instructors for SwimPrep will go through a six-week training period where SwimPrep will provide in-house training and certifications for the instructional and educational swim lessons. Instructors will also receive Red Cross CPR and AED certifications, and there will be lifeguards on duty at all times. Jefrey stated that almost all, if not all of the instructors will be Red Cross lifeguard certified.
“Every child does not learn the same way, that’s why this process for training is so long. Once they go through that they’ll be certified with SwimPrep, with in-house certification. It allows us to keep the quality where we want it to be,” Jeffrey said.
The facility itself is projected to be done this spring and will house a 30 x 75 ft. indoor and heated pool. The pool will also be chlorinated, and Rebecca confirmed that the chlorine that they will be using is specific to sensitive skin.
“Lessons are consistent, repetitive and short. For the little ones, that’s about all they can take, anything past 10-15 minutes gets frustrating for them and then they can’t retain it,” Rebecca said.
However, the main focus for SwimPrep is aquatic safety, and bringing awareness to an essential lifesaving skill, swimming.
“The kids will most likely stop playing soccer or stop dance classes, but there’s always water around and they’re going to swim for the rest of their life, and here they’re learning a lifelong skill,” Rebecca said.
SwimPrep is currently taking registration on their website and has more information also on their website or their Facebook Page, SwimPrep, LLC.
