The “swim-float-swim game” at the Old Town-Orono YMCA teaches youngsters what to do when they’re tired and don’t think they can keep going: Flip over and float on your back until you catch your breath and are ready to swim again. It’s fun, but it can also save lives.
“Learning to swim has a huge impact on the kids,” says Cody Levensalor, the Y’s healthy living director. “We’re essentially teaching them a life skill, in a really engaging way.”
Thanks to the late Herbert Sargent (1906-2006) and his family, the Old Town/Orono YMCA can provide lessons for people of all ages. In April 1995, the Y opened the Herbert E. Sargent Family Pool, a six-lane, warm-water therapeutic pool.
Ongoing support from the Herb Sargent Fund at the Maine Community Foundation has allowed the Y to enhance its pool programming. For example, every year the Y invites all the second-grade classes at Old Town Elementary School – around 45 kids – to take six weeks of swim lessons. “This is important in our water safety mission, since some of these children have never been in a pool,” says Debra Boyd, the Y’s CEO and executive director.
As a founding MaineCF board director (he served 1984-1990), Sargent played a key role in MaineCF’s early years by making connections for the startup foundation and establishing his own advised fund. Today, two of his daughters, Calista Hannigan of Holden and Marvia Meagher of Hampden, advise on grants from the Herb Sargent Fund. Their decision-making is guided by their father’s dedication to supporting youth opportunities.
“[Dad] believed in happy and safe and friendly places for young people to congregate,” notes Calista. She traces his passion for helping youth to his childhood: He grew up in the small, rural town of Alton “where nearby friends were not available often.” Later at Milo High School, he “valued the times he could be with peers his own age.”
Sargent served on many boards – including the Old Town-Orono Y, local school committees, and the Stillwater Federated Church – and through this service learned how youth need to be involved in meaningful and healthy activities. “And, of course,” adds Calista, “he raised five children who showed him daily the need to be kept occupied!”
“His life and influence were so important to us,” says Calista, “to his peers, and to the community he loved and lived in every day.” Adds Marvia, “He was a very generous person who didn’t advertise his giving.”
The women praise MaineCF for its stewardship and guidance. “We believe in you,” says Calista, “and Dad did too.” That belief inspired the family to make a $100,000 lead gift to help launch MaineCF’s Penobscot County Fund in 2010. The Herb Sargent Fund for Penobscot County, advised by the Penobscot County Committee, has awarded 13 grants totaling $53,370 (and the fund has grown from $100,000 to $143,053). The committee also makes awards from six related funds and has awarded 124 grants totaling $1.1 million over the last ten years.
The pool at the Y is an important part of Sargent’s legacy – a welcoming place where people of all ages can enjoy the water. “As a community,” says Y Director Boyd, “we are blessed.”
Kindergarten-aged children take swimming lessons as part of the Old Town-Orono summer camp program. Photos Ashley L. Conti
