Almost 90,000 Participate in April Pool’s Day
Nearly 90,000 children and families across the country participated in USA Swimming’s month-long April Pool’s Day water safety initiative, signing the first-ever Water Safety Pledge and committing to stay safe in pools this summer.
Alloy Media & Marketing helped USA Swimming promote the April Pool’s Day campaign, which targeted students from kindergarten to the sixth grade in an effort to integrate water safety curriculum into classrooms. This was the third year of the initiative, but the first year Alloy has been a partner.
USA Swimming brought star-power to the month-long event, with Olympic medalists Amanda Beard, Natalie Coughlin, Ian Crocker and Michael Phelps encouraging children to sign a water safety pledge, and Alloy is supporting with an online sweepstakes that dangles a pool party for the schools that sign the most pledges.
Four schools—located in Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia and California—won the Ultimate Pool Parties and will also each receive a $1,000 donation from USA Swimming to be allocated to physical education and after school programs.
Additionally, three second-place winners—located in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana—will each receive a $500 donation from USA Swimming. One bonus school—located in Virginia—was randomly selected from the second-place finishers and will receive a $500 donation as well as an Ultimate Pool Party.
Students at participating elementary schools logged onto Winpoolparty.com Winpoolparty.com to sign the water safety pledge, which counted as a vote for their school to win the USA Swimming Ultimate Pool Party. Pledges were made during the month of April, and the winning schools .
Alloy promoted the contest and water safety in 5,000 schools via its in-school media vehicle, 360 School Voice, encouraging students to visit the Web site and vote.
This year’s April Pool’s Day campaign generated the highest percentage of participation for any initiative in USA Swimming’s history, with a participation increase of more than 40% over a similar campaign last year.
