Barracudas

The Bella Casa Barracudas Swim Team was founded on 3 basic principals. To: 

1. Foster friendships within the community,
2. Teach children a healthy lifestyle 
3. Teach kids how to efficiently and effectively swim

First, we create an environment for kids to meet other kids. This can be challenging when they attend different schools, are on different year-round tracks, or different calendars altogether. The neighborhood swim team can give kids a chance to meet other kids in their community and build lasting friendships.

Second, we aim to give children the opportunity to learn valuable life skills that promote a healthy lifestyle. 

Third, we encourage kids to swim and go beyond what is taught in lessons so they have a deeper knowledge of swimming that could one day save their life.

We firmly believe that every child should learn the lifelong skill of swimming.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 % of American adults can’t swim the length of a pool, which puts them at risk of being 1 of the 10 Americans who drown every day (2 of which are children 14 or younger). Drowning is the 5th leading cause of unintentional death in the United States (US) and the leading cause of unintentional death in US children 14 or younger.

Swim Lessons vs Swim Team

With young children and beginner swimmers, both swim lessons and swim teams are primarily focused on teaching swimmers how to swim, and those children are going to learn to swim no matter which path they choose. 

The primary purpose of swim lessons is to teach survival techniques for the water and gain the proficiency required to survive a potential life threatening situation. With a swim team, swimmers learn to become strong, confident swimmers and perfect swimming skills via repetition and stroke correction over many years. For a young child, what we do will not be that different, but the way that we do it will be.

This pursuit of improvement is what separates swim lessons from a swim team, and, in turn, has many other positive effects.

Everyone Benefits

The forming of friendships across the whole family is quite common. Parents and grandparents who volunteer often form strong bonds as well. The Bella Casa Barracudas is a uniting force within our community.

The traits and qualities that swimmers develop by constantly pursuing improvement are the same that help children and people succeed in school, work, and life. Swimming is a lifelong sport with huge benefits! 

The Barracuda Boosters of Bella Casa is organized exclusively for charitable purposes, including, for such purposes, the making of distributions to organizations that qualify as exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or the corresponding section of any future federal tax code.

The purpose of the Barracuda Boosters is to provide financial support to the Bella Casa Barracudas Swim Team. The booster club will also encourage sportsmanship, social participation and etiquette among participants, members and families. The association does not direct the activities of the coaches or control coaching policies.

Financial donations given to support the swim team are tax deductible under state and federal laws.

More and more local neighborhood swim teams are organized in this fashion in order to solicit donations to make local swim teams possible.