From Fear to Fun: Opening Opportunity Through Swim Lessons

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Danielle Hodge. Read her story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

When Danielle Hodge was around 4 years old, she nearly drowned in the pool of her Florida home. Luckily, her brother pulled her out, but it was a traumatic event that has stuck with her, despite eventually learning to swim with the help of neighbors. She learned to love the water. It wasn’t until years later, after learning that the Black and Hispanic communities have the highest rates of drowning, she recognized how close she came to becoming a part of that statistic.

Just as the pandemic hit and brought her work in event production to a halt, she leaned on her enjoyment of aquatics to relax. It was a stressful time.

“I was looking for a pool inflatable online to just chill out in the backyard,” she recollects, noting that what she found was dull and generic. “I started googling Black-owned pool inflatable companies, and nothing came up.”

In that moment she decided to launch a line of inflatables, and Alma Ocean was born. But the statistics still nagged at her. Danielle didn’t want to sell pool toys to a population that was drowning. She understood the many reasons for the Black community’s hesitancy to learn to swim—historical segregation laws, previous generations passing down fear, lack of access and more—that has led to the gap in diversity in the pool.

People simply weren’t learning to swim, even for basic survival, and Danielle wanted to change that. A year later, she launched Alma Swim Foundation to offer free and subsidized swim lessons and to host aquatic events that bolster confidence in and around the water. In 2024, the organization provided 500 lessons to BIPOC people by raising money and partnering with community pools. This year her goal is to double that.

“When we teach people how to swim, it may seem like a small thing, but it opens doors for other things,” explains Shydonna Tossie, a flight attendant and swim instructor with Alma Swim. “We’re giving people the tools to not just survive but to enjoy their lives, to take chances and go on these excursions they plan without fear.”

Danielle’s role as director involves overseeing administrative details, managing event logistics, securing funds to subsidize lessons and coordinating volunteers and swim instructors. She’s also always on the lookout for partnership opportunities.

“If I’m stuck or frustrated in life, volunteering has always helped that,” Danielle explains, adding that meeting people and connecting with the community is a bonus. “People always say they don’t have time, but you always can have at least an hour or two. You will walk away feeling that much more motivated to navigate through life.”

She often fed unhoused individuals while living in New York and had just returned home from a trash cleanup before this interview.

“Danielle is so charismatic and encouraging to people,” Shydonna emphasizes. “She wants to see everybody win.”

Alma Swim programs are based in Eatonville, FL. Not only is the town primarily made up of the target demographic, but Danielle has been welcomed with open arms by the community pool’s aquatics director, Darius Washington. Because she runs so many programs there, locals often jokingly call it “Danielle’s Spa and Resort.”

She brings people to the pool with events like April Pools Day and the World’s Largest Swim Lesson, the latter of which brought out 75 to 80 people, including the Boys and Girls Club and elementary school students. She also offered seniors lessons last summer, the oldest of whom was over 80, and water aerobics.

“Some of them were in tears trying to do this thing that they’ve been afraid of their whole lives or just didn’t have the opportunity to do. It’s incredible watching their friends get beside them and say, ‘You can do this. We’re doing this together,’” Shydonna describes.

One woman, who came with her husband of 40 years, mentioned that he’s been trying to teach her to swim since they got married. It was a celebration when, in under 30 minutes, she was gliding across the length of the pool.

“She had made sure all of her kids and grandkids could swim, but the entire time, she hadn’t been able to do it. Then she got to go show them she could,” Shydonna boasts.

The city of Orlando has also supported the mission with grants and a proclamation for April Pools Day to be an official day for the foundation.

Looking ahead, Danielle is hopeful about expanding her reach. She recently earned her Water Safety Instructor certificate that will enable her to keep things running smoothly.

“I want to make sure that I’m good to go, in the case, like right now, I’m needed to fill in. I don’t want to miss potential students because we’re short on teachers,” she says, explaining that teachers are a mix of volunteers and paid experts.

In the meantime, she keeps things positive on social media. Instead of posting alarming drowning statistics, she highlights Black people learning, lifeguarding, surfing and generally having fun in the water.  The goal is to help people past their fears and view swimming as a life skill that everyone should have.

“I hope every Black person, when they’re meeting somebody, asks if they know how to swim. Just talk about it, because we go on vacations, and we don’t know how to swim. We go to pool parties, and we don’t know how to swim,” she articulates. “I just hope that the conversation becomes more of a norm with actionable steps afterwards.”

One of her most rewarding moments of the last few years came after meeting the Howard University swim and dive team and their coaching staff in her capacity as a Rosen Aquatic Center board member. She looked out over the 20+ lanes and was struck with the rarity of what she was seeing.

“I just thought this is a crazy image that I’m looking at right now, because it’s the first time I’ve seen a majority Black swim team. They’re the first HBCU to have a swim team,” she says.

Two days later, after connecting with the team and telling them about her work, she facilitated a historical trip to Eatonville, one of the country’s first self-governing Black municipalities, to learn the history and to receive a key to the city.

As Danielle strives to save lives and create joy through swimming, these are the role models who will help pique interest in the sport. But she herself is making a difference in the way BIPOC individuals  relate to the water. Her impact will not only be seen in the skills people learn in the pool but will be felt through future generations as those skills are passed down.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Danielle? Find local volunteer opportunities.