Local businesses dive in to help students swim

By Carolyn Sloan

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Two local businesses in the Cornwallis Park Mall have come together to help raise funds for a swim program at the nearby Clark Rutherford Memorial School.

Norman Naime, owner of Norm’s World Cuisine, and Brian Madore, owner of the Clover Farms grocery store, say that all kids should have the opportunity to learn how to swim. The two are hoping to help raise enough money to give the students in Grades 3, 4 and 5 an eight-week swimming program that would teach them the basics of swimming, such as how to stay afloat and stay alive if they are in the water.

Naime says that he became motivated to provide the kids with lessons after a couple young people drowned last year.

“It would be nice to help the children because Nova Scotia is surrounded by water,” he says. “It’s unbelievable the need that is out there in the community. For those who see the need, if they don’t step up and do something about it, when will the needs ever be met?”

For Madore, helping support the students is about giving kids an opportunity they normally wouldn’t have in a very small school where funding is stretched thin.

“The kids in the area need a break,” he says. “Anything, in my mind, we can do for the kids is a great bonus.”

While Lifeplex has already offered a generous discount on the cost of the program, the two business owners are appealing to the public to help deliver the lessons to the students. All three venues -- Lifeplex, Norm’s World Cuisine, and Clover Farms -- will have donation boxes. Anyone who would like to get a tax receipt can do so by channeling donations through the wellness facility.