Giving life lessons
Child swim school after son’s drowning
Their mission is to save lives, one lesson at a time.
Stew Leonard Jr., the CEO of the grocery chain bearing his father’s name, and his wife, Kim, saw their world fall apart when their 21month-old son died in a drowning accident.
Stew “Stewie” Leonard III was found floating facedown in a pool during a party on Jan. 1, 1989. Since then, the couple has vowed to help others avoid the same tragedy.
Their latest venture in that mission: constructing the first-ever Stewie the Duck Swim School, a 6,400square-foot aquatics facility poised to teach children aged six months to 18 years old.
“Losing a child is one of the most painful things you can experience in life,” Leonard told The Post. “It’s been a dream of ours to open something like this for 10 years . . . and we’re hoping to teach 500 lessons a week here.”
The school — which will be based beside the Stew Leonard’s in Norwalk, Conn. — is set to open during the height of swimming season in June, with all proceeds from the school going to fund more lessons for children in need.
The facility will include a 4-foot-deep heated pool where children will learn how to float, turn in the water and swim, all while in the care of their parents, lifeguards and certified instructors.
Leonard and Kim described losing their son as the darkest period of their lives, noting that if he knew how to turn himself in the pool, he would still be alive today. When their third child was born, the grieving parents read up on child water safety.
Quickly becoming experts in the matter, they wrote their own award-winning book, “Stewie the Duck Learns to Swim,” and founded the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation in their son’s memory.
“We decided that we were going to do everything we could to help other parents,” Leonard said. “Even thinking about it today, it sends shivers up my spine.”
Leonard and Kim have since raised $6 million to help fund lifeguard training and provide hundreds of thousands of swimming lessons to children. In 2022 alone, the foundation taught 7,000 children and helped certify 174 lifeguards.
Among the groups that have received aid from the foundation include New York City’s Asphalt Green, a nonprofit athletic facility in the Upper East Side.
Drowning continues to be the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, with the CDC reporting about 4,000 drownings every year in the US.