SWIMMING WITH goldfish
Lima business teaches kids swimming skills from an early age
MIDDLETOWN » A new children’s swimming school has opened in Delaware County, catering to kids as young as 4 months old. Goldfish Swim School of Media has opened at The Promenade at Granite Run, next door to Boscov’s department store.
Greg and Alexandra DeRise of Devon, along with their business partner Anthony Pistilli of Media, have opened the facility decorated with a Caribbean feel and featuring a 60,000-gallon 75’ x 25’ indoor pool at its center to teach children up to age 12 to swim.
DeRise said the main goal of the school is to get children safe in and around the water. They teach learning through guided play to develop the skills to swim.
“We start at 4 months of age. At that age, they are used to being in the womb and they are used to being in that environment,” said Greg DeRise during a tour of the facility last week. “They are very comfortable and there is not the fear of the water, so getting started that early is great.”
The school uses a curriculum of swim play to keep the children learning and progressing further. As the students get older and they can move into more advanced learning, the school prepares them for a swim team.
Instructors are lifeguard and first aid certified. The staff includes two managers and 30 instructors, mostly part time.
This is the trio’s second franchise. They opened their first in Malvern 2 ½ years ago and have found success.
DeRise is from the New York area and was working in banking when he and his wife began
“We start at 4 months of age. At that age, they are used to being in the womb and they are used to being in that environment.” — Greg DeRise of Goldfish Swim School
looking for swimming lesson for their young son in North Jersey. They found a Goldfish franchise in Wyckoff and loved it.
“I took a day off from work his first day and was just blown away by it,” DeRise recalled. “My initial thought was I wonder if the owners might like to partner up and we started looking into it. I saw that it was a well thought-out infrastructure.”
They took a trip out to Michigan to meet company co-founders Jenny and Chris McCuiston.
“She was an Olympic-qualifying swimmer at Arizona State and also (involved in) early childhood development. She started teaching then they started it,” DeRise said. “Getting there and seeing what went into it and how much they cared about it got me more excited.”
At that point, Pistilli, whose wife is originally from Collegeville, got involved. They researched potential locations and moved to the Delaware Valley.
“Eventually, we sold the house, took everything, came down here and dived, pun intended, head-first into it,” DeRise chuckled.
“It’s really what parents want for their children. Some come and say ‘I have a pool and I need to feel comfortable that they can get to their back, get out of the pool’ - all of the lessons are created to both safety and swim skills. The way swimming works, if you are comfortable floating on your face or on your back you’re going to be able to move better through the water when you using swim strokes, so it kind of builds on itself.”
“It takes a while to learn (to swim). Think about a child learning to crawl, it takes a lot of failure,” he continued. “Swimming is a complex skill kicking, pulling and breathing. Learning to swim helps them learn to focus.”
The facility has a Caribbeanthemed décor and plays island music in the background. Sixteen individual stalls allow privacy when changing into swim gear.
Anyone who has visited an indoor pool in the winter knows it can be chilly getting in – but not at Goldfish, where the air is 91 degrees and the pool water is kept a toasty 90 degrees. This helps lessen the anxiety for young children getting into the water.
The new facility uses a high tech system to manage humidity and temperature of the air and water which prevents that steam bath feel.
“It keeps it below 40 percent humidity and the air and pool circulation keeps the smell at a minimum,” DeRise said.
During the pandemic, the business practices six foot spacing, limits one parent into the building at a time and is constantly cleaning. While swimmers take off their masks during practice, staff wear face shields.
Once the 30 minute lessons are over, drying off is made easier with a blow dry bar and suit spinners to remove excess water.
Students are broken down by age and skill level. Three-yearolds and younger will have parents in the water with them. The ratio of students to instructors is 4:1 for the younger groups and for older children 3:1.
DeRise said that as the swimmers improve they can continue with the swim force training, mini meets and swim team training.
“It’s unbelievable to see kids 4-year-olds , 5, 6-year-olds - doing butterflies across the pool. It’s mesmerizing to see kids that small do it,” he said. “We impress that on our staff - kids can do amazing things. You have to believe in them and they’ll believe in themselves. It’s awesome to see.”
They’ve already signed up
500 swimmers and hope to reach 2,000. Payment works on a year-round attendance plan with monthly billing.
DeRise estimates the business cost $2 million to get up and running from the original research to the building development, which included digging 6 feet into a place known as Granite Run.
“We ran into a couple of large rocks, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” he said. “BET, our landlord, knew the right place to build. It set us back a couple of weeks but that was it.”