Tawanda Ford and Eli Dowell give Nestor a modern tour of The Y pool and programs in Randallstown

Community. Water fitness classes and lessons. For youths and families and seniors. We step inside The Y Swim Center in Randallstown to chat with Eli Dowell and Tawanda Ford about what a successful community endeavors feels like on a summer day in Baltimore County.

Nestor Aparicio visited the YMCA in Randallstown to explore their facilities and programs. Tawanda Ford, the membership director, and Eli Dowell, the Associate Executive Director, highlighted the Y’s focus on community, water fitness classes, and swim lessons. The pool is utilized from 5:30 AM to 10 PM daily, with various water exercise programs and swim lessons for all ages. The Y also addresses senior loneliness through activities and health screenings. They emphasized the importance of pool safety and offered financial assistance for camp and memberships. The Juneteenth Celebration featured 100 vendors and guest speakers, attracting nearly 1,000 attendees.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

YMCA, Randallstown, swim facility, water fitness, swim lessons, community, Juneteenth, pool safety, membership drive, senior activities, summer camp, financial assistance, health screenings, lifeguards, Baltimore positive.

SPEAKERS

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Nestor Aparicio, Eli Dowell, Tawanda Ford

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are in beautiful Randallstown. It’s Baltimore positive. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have the Back to the Future scratch offs to give away to one day. And Eli, don’t know, but they’re going to be getting these here. We’re at the Y in Randallstown. We were at the swim facility in the center right off of brenbrook and Liberty Road. I have been in here now four and a half hours. It’s about 190 degrees with humidity in here. I’m melting. Tawanda has air conditioned building over here. So does Eli. Eli is the Associate Executive Director of the Y swim centers. That’s why the water is blue and beautiful, because if I was that guy, be green right now. Tawanda Ford here, she’s the membership director the Y in Central Maryland, and the Y swim center, Randall stand, I’m gonna be honest with both you. I’ve been talking about doing some partnerships with the Y for a number of years. I’ve known John. You all know John Hoey well. He makes you laugh. You make him laugh. And a couple weeks ago, I had a meeting, and I said, I want to do a crab cake tour out here. And I and I’ve all clean cuisine. I didn’t know about their Justin Burke ride and all the things they were gonna do, but I went on the central why Central Maryland website, and I thought, now they want me to do a crab cake tour at the Y where am I gonna set up? Not in the locker room, set up in a gym. I’ve done my show everywhere. And I went online, and I saw you all having a Juneteenth event here on believe it’s June 7 this last week or two, yeah. And I saw this last month. This is back before the Preakness. And I saw this pool, and I saw the picture of it, and I saw why Swim Club, Randallstown, Juneteenth, June. And I thought, well, I know a crab cake guy, so I know I can bring the crab cake tour there. And I thought, this would just be such a beautiful setting. And for about a month and a half, I knew I was coming out of here. I didn’t know you all would be out here with me. You didn’t know I was gonna be bringing a clean cuisine crab cakes. But what a beautiful facility you have here. And I I tell John, I grew up in Dundalk, so the old y when I was a kid. I’m talking about the 80s, 40 years ago. I know how to look that old Eli, but I’m 40 years out of high school, and we used to go to the Y when I was young and to see what the modern y is and what it represents. And Eli, you seem a little younger than Tawanda, but the why and what? Maybe I heard the YMCA village people song playing a while ago. I was in a Yeah, what a Y was, and what a Y is. Tell everybody what the y is here Randallstown, Tawanda,

Tawanda Ford  02:24

the Y in Randallstown, we’re all about our members, our youth, our seniors, adults and community. We are good at providing activities for them. It’s a welcoming place, safe place for members to be at. We are known for water fitness classes. Here we have more water fitness classes than most of our centers and our swim lessons. We teach spectacular swim lessons

Nestor Aparicio  02:57

I saw but having fun, I text my wife a minute ago, it was loud in here. I’m soaking wet. I did not bring a swimsuit. I’m an idiot. I should have brought a rubber ducky. I should be doing this. I should be doing this topless right here. But I wrote to my wife, I said they’re doing water aerobics and making me jealous here. And I sent that out nine minutes ago to my wife, literally, I said, I want to get in the pool. This looks like fun. I want to quit my day job. Come out here, hang out at the Y is what I wanted to sense of community here. Well, I think we I can feel that for the minute I walked in, I met you at the door. I came in the wrong door. I came in the door over by the gym, and you came over, rescued me here. How often is this pool being utilized? Is the water moving in here from 530 in the morning

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Eli Dowell  03:42

when you open. Um, so when we open at 530 in the morning, we have about 10 to 15 members that come in. And then our water exercise programs Monday through Friday start at 6am and they go to about 10am to 11am and then that’s when it kind of cools off, and our lap swimmers come in, and then at about three to four, that’s when we have more water exercise classes. Then we start swim lessons, and then on Tuesdays and Thursday nights, we have swim lessons again, on win

Nestor Aparicio  04:08

lessons, lessons, lessons. And there’s always, because you’re coming in that door, you better get a lesson. Yeah, it’s a pool. It’s fun, but there’s danger here. Yeah,

Eli Dowell  04:17

I had a former manager once tell me that an empty, empty pool is a waste of money. So we try to program our pool out from beginning to

Nestor Aparicio  04:26

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like you, is a waste of money. What is not a waste of money here? What is, what’s, what’s valuable here to one there’s somebody comes and joins us.

Tawanda Ford  04:36

Why? What is valuable is our sense of community. This is a safe place. It’s like a family atmosphere here, and we have activities geared towards our youth and to our folks like you, your age, and to our seniors. We have I’m glad you

Nestor Aparicio  04:57

didn’t put me in either one. Not you. I’m not seeing. You know, I first time this summer I went to the movies. You know, I’m 56 so I’m getting that AARP thing at this point. First time this summer, I once used fact get a discount. I thought they’re 55 nah. Can’t get one, though I’m 60, but I’m getting there. So, I mean, I’m I do see these activities for folks that are a little older than me, and I think to myself, That’s what I want to be doing whenever I do get

Tawanda Ford  05:24

old. We have a lot of activities out of the pool as well. We have like, for example, light bridge comes here and gives blood pressure screenings, various health screenings. We have lunch and learns. We have a partnership with Baltimore County and their organizations come in, and then we have fun stuff. We have like bingo, we have line dancing classes. We’re going to be having a Soul Train party. What we have holiday parties. We do a lot here.

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Nestor Aparicio  05:55

I’ve only heard good music since I walked in. The minute I walked in. I wore my Earth, Wind and Fire belt buckle today because it was gold, and I wanted to be respectful of Juneteenth, and I tried to wear some Juneteenth colors here. Get my get my African thing going off in my South American background, but I heard nothing but great disco music, 70s, 80s, 90s music here. I mean, it feels a little bit like a disco a little bit. There’s always music and activity and movement, and I’ve literally, I’ve been sitting here about four and a half hours. I’ve been here a while, and it hasn’t been adult moments. It’s a bit it keeps you guys young. Yeah.

Eli Dowell  06:30

Also addressing one of our nation’s leading problems right now is loneliness in our seniors. So we’re really addressing that issue here at Randallstown, is loneliness within our seniors in the community, we have some some of our active older adults that come in and they do water exercise classes, then they play space 10 all day long. They have lunch. They have dinner here, loneliness, random sound, why?

Nestor Aparicio  06:55

Well, and also keeping kids active and out of trouble. My vibe is, kids are still in school today, which is when I came but my vibe is, if I did the show here, next week will be a little different around here, right? Yeah, it’d be very I’m gonna hear more noise, more summer probably brings this place to life in a different kind of way, right, right? How many

Tawanda Ford  07:16

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years for you to want to be in here? 15 years in August.

Nestor Aparicio  07:19

So you got big kids like me to come back? Yeah, yeah,

Tawanda Ford  07:23

yeah, yeah. We have a lot of kids. I’ve seen Life Guards grow up. I mean, they were here taking swim lessons, and then they became lifeguards. It’s just a progressing family affair here.

Nestor Aparicio  07:37

Well, I can see how proud of it you are at this point. Membership drive. I know this is a big month for all this. I’m showing things off here at the pool. Not every y has a pool. Not every y has everyone. And you have, by the way, I said to them, can you bring me some pamphlets? And they’re like, We have older people here to take paperwork home. So I’m just reading off some stuff here, just to be clever. Okay, water fitness, Aqua arthritis, water fitness, low impact, Aqua Zumba, yeah, no wonder the music was good. Water volleyball, yeah.

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Eli Dowell  08:10

It gets very competitive. Sometimes our associates even get in Zumba,

Nestor Aparicio  08:16

gold, deep water jog, that’s what I need get my get myself in. Why? Camp starts June 16. That’s, yeah, summer camp yesterday. All right, 14 camp locations, lots of Camp options for children. Four to 17 day camp, overnight camp, teen camp, specialty camp, no sunburns here. I like that. I’ll tell you that right now.

Tawanda Ford  08:39

But, and I do want to mention about camp, we try to make it affordable for everyone. So if you are low income or can’t afford to send your child to camp, come in and fill out an open doors application for financial assistance, yeah, and it’ll help you with membership with camp and for swim lessons. This is for everybody. Yes, for everybody. Tell

Nestor Aparicio  09:03

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folks, maybe how that does work, who want to be educated on that they come in maybe they don’t have the funds that want to be a part of what you’re doing. I don’t say, you know, no child turned away, but I’m thinking, what we try to do. I mean, I see you at the front door in here to one. I’m thinking, you’re gonna help somebody. I mean, yeah, I can see help written all over your

Tawanda Ford  09:21

face, yes, yes. We want everyone to have an opportunity to be a y member. You come in, you throw out an application, you bring us your proof of income, and we review it, and we go from there. And you can choose to have a swim center only, membership or association wide.

Nestor Aparicio  09:38

She got a movie night here on July 14 with Medea, destination wedding popcorn included in that you do food sharing on Thursday between 11 and one. I’m just giving people, they think, YMCA, it’s fun song. There’s a pool. I work out more going on educationally and programming wide. You. Yeah, I would say classroom. But stuff outside of the pool. What are your favorite things you do here?

Eli Dowell  10:07

Um, I would say it’s given our active older adults. Um, you know some of those things. You know how to deal with certain health issues. Um, estate planning. Um, how to build, you know, healthier lifestyles, because that’s the area that we target. Is a lot of our active older adults.

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Nestor Aparicio  10:28

You put something up on the board and say, This month we’re bringing someone in to talk about estate, your money, your health, your kids, your mental health, your

Tawanda Ford  10:36

Yeah, and that’s every month,

Nestor Aparicio  10:37

because so much of what you do here is movement, yeah, why? I mean, the reason the why is the why isn’t kind of movement, right? Yeah,

Eli Dowell  10:45

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moving around is beyond the body is about the mind, the mind, body and spirit.

Nestor Aparicio  10:49

All right, so the Juneteenth Celebration got me out. And I finally found the Juneteenth Celebration page here, because I did see the pool, and it’s what brought me out. And listen, I grew up East Baltimore. I’m Hispanic background. I grew up Archie dunk. Archie Bunker’s done dog. Juneteenth is something that’s new to a lot of people. They don’t know what it’s about. Understand the celebration this week. Tell me what’s going on here at the Y for Juneteenth.

Tawanda Ford  11:15

Well, we already had our Juneteenth Celebration. I know I’m late last Saturday. It was Saturday, June 7, but it did get me here. It was a huge event. We had almost 100 vendors and food trucks. We had entertainment. We had guest speakers from the NAACP. We had Julian Jones in we had a fantastic DJ. We had performances and it was activities.

Nestor Aparicio  11:43

Julia told me it’s a big deal. He sat down and did the show me. He said I was here last week for that. That was a big deal. Yes, and probably because I originally, they’d asked me if I could broadcast from it, and I’m like, that might be too, you know, I wanted this, I wanted a little bit of that, a little bit of that, but I wanted it to be a little more calm to talk about it. But this is something you’re doing every year, and this is the only thing, but this has become a centerpiece event for you. I could tell when the events calendar when I saw the pool, I’m like, I know you guys are proud of this. And this is sort of, I say, a flagship event for you guys here, right?

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Tawanda Ford  12:18

Yes, we started it in 2019 actually, okay, yeah, first big event, and it has grown. Every year it’s growing. It’s

Nestor Aparicio  12:28

a little bit of a start of summer, right? I mean, if the timing of it to say, pools open, because that was my message. When I looked on the why, Central Maryland, I thought, I want to do the crab cake tour out there. Where, how, when pool, Juneteenth start a summer. And then there’s the pool safety part. I want to get you a piece of this, Eli, because I know the pool is your thing. It’s beautiful, it’s clean. Doesn’t smell too chlorine in here. Now get home up

Eli Dowell  12:53

our property team does a great job keeping our pools well balanced. When you can, when you cannot smell chlorine, it’s a perfectly balanced pool. So whenever you go somewhere and it smells like chlorine, then there’s an issue. But when it doesn’t smell like chlorine, that’s a perfectly balanced

Nestor Aparicio  13:08

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pool. Well, as a cautious tale, I was a replacement child as an adopted child, my parents lost their son to a drowning. It wasn’t a pool drowning. It was 1969 it was had to do with some a storm and riding tubes, and he got trapped. He was a young boy. He’s 12 years old the time 1969 so my parents lost their son to drowning. You know, I can’t say I think about it, and I think about it was a little bit before my time, but in the last 10 years, I’ve done segments on this topic this time of year. Denny Nagle, former pitcher right down here from gambrels, pitch in the World Series, a champion, great life. His his brother lost a son to a pool drowning. So therefore I brought him on to talk about pool safety. Bodie Miller, famous, world famous skier. He did my show about five weeks ago, middle of May, they called me. Said, Hey, you want to have Bodie Miller on shore? I mean the decorating, you know, Olympian skier. He was sitting in front of a Lanai in a pool, talking about losing his child to a pool drowning. He and his wife lost their child. So I want to give you a little bit of oxygen for this, because you’re here, and there’s people in his pool all the time, as I see a lifeguard right here circling the pool. You mentioned how many young people come they learn, but so much of pool safety, this is the month we talk about it, not for the kids, because two or three or four year old kids that are having this problem, even young, you know, younger people, they this is an adult education issue in this country. And today, tomorrow, we’re gonna lose somebody to a pool drowning. And it’s it’s all avoidable, all of it’s avoidable. And part of that for you is teaching. I see the we got lifeguard walking behind us. We sit here, but that’s really job number one of what you do in this pool, right?

Eli Dowell  14:54

Yes, is making sure that people learn how to swim. It’s a life saving skill. And drowning. Is the leading cause of death for children between the ages of five to 14. So what the wise on a mission to lower that, that risk of making sure that children don’t drown in their safety.

Nestor Aparicio  15:12

We’re not taking the pools out the pool is going to be we just need to learn how to yes, we

Eli Dowell  15:16

need to make sure everybody’s Water Smart. What

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Nestor Aparicio  15:18

do you see here with young kids in deep water. And do you rescue kids in this pool once a summer or No,

Eli Dowell  15:25

I say that we do. Our lifeguards do a really good job of preventing that’s they are really on top of things. So once what happens fast, is my point, right? It happens really, really fast. And so our associates, our lifeguards, do a really good job of making sure that parents are in the water with their kids. And then we’re also swim testing them so that we know their water comfort abilities and where they can go in the pool. And then we try to offer them, if they don’t pass the swim test, all right, let’s get them in swim lessons so maybe next summer they will pass the swim test. So it when we see that kids don’t know how to swim, we try to offer them swim lessons so that they can be comfortable and smart around the water,

Nestor Aparicio  16:03

easy to do swim lessons here, right when you say swim lessons, you sign up every Saturday, three days a week for a week, and on Monday, they don’t know how to swim in. By Friday, they’re a little better at it or

Eli Dowell  16:14

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so usually we do one day a week for about seven weeks, and we take a week off, or we usually do a makeup during that week, and then we start back up. We try to tell any age from three months all the way until 99 I tell people diapers to diapers. So we

Nestor Aparicio  16:33

day you have a kid that comes in here that’s never been in a pool, never been to the ocean. Yeah, every day, every day. Yeah. Well, it’s exciting.

Eli Dowell  16:40

Yeah, and just getting people in to learn how to swim, it’s a life saving skill. But you also can turn into a career. You can become a lifeguard. You can then manage pools. So there’s many different steps. Or you can go be an Olympic swimmer. There’s so many different avenues. And then swimming is one of the best cardios out there as well. So there’s so many opportunities when it comes to swimming.

Nestor Aparicio  17:01

First thing I almost got Jessica long out here today, you know, Paralympic swimmer, most decorated in the world. And I thought about her, and she almost came out last week, accidental. I had Katie Pumphrey. She’s the young lady that swims the bay. Yeah. So she came in and gave, oh my god, the story. She told me they’re playing on the Anders week. And then I think the first story ever wrote when I worked at the newspaper 1984 was about swimming. And when I think about the most decorated, no offense to Cal Ripken or even Babe Ruth, who are from Maryland, Michael Phelps, I mean, we got, I mean, we have a rich pool tradition here, right? So getting in the pool, going down to the ocean, being safe, the Y can teach you your children at a swim. Come out here to Randallstown. Eli and Wanda are going to take great carrier Towanda Ford, I can’t forget your names. My wife’s maiden name. Tawanda is the membership director here at the Y in Central Maryland, the Y swim center Randallstown. You can find that all Why maryland.org Eli dal is the Associate Executive Director of the Y swim centers. He makes sure the pool water is clean, but you give all the credit to the people to keep the pool water clean.

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Eli Dowell  18:07

Yes, I give it to our associates like that is the number one driver here is just how well our associates are with people. They make everybody feel welcome. So they do our front line associates. They do a really great job every day, making sure this is a place of belonging. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  18:23

you guys have been beautiful guests. You’re running a great facility out here. You when you get old and gray, especially you Eli, you can tell people ways to go. Do you remember the day that idiot came out and hooked all his equipment up and came out with long pants on and sat at the pool five hours and sweat and sweat and sweat get wiping the sweat off, because this pool, I don’t think I would be cold in your pool water. One of the things about thinking about jumping in the pool is, we’re saying, jump in the deep end. You get the cold, cold water. Yeah, it feels to me like this is a warm

Eli Dowell  18:56

pool. This is 85 degrees, so it’s very

Nestor Aparicio  19:00

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comfortable. Well, that’s better than an outdoor pool where you go in and you start

Eli Dowell  19:03

to shift, like into July for it to get warm enough, all right? Well, I

Nestor Aparicio  19:07

hope this is not my last time doing the show with you, and if I do it the next time I’m wearing my bathing suit, okay, and I am gonna get in the pool, I didn’t think about getting in your What an idiot I am. Come out here and do five hours of radio, and

Tawanda Ford  19:22

I didn’t even get in the pool. Come back and you come back. All right? Well, it’s still

Nestor Aparicio  19:25

open. It’s just the beginning of the summer, so I’ll come out here get some lessons, make sure I know what I’m doing when I get in the water. My thanks to Eli and Towanda. My thanks to wrap it up for everybody. Jerry Schlichting from McLean cuisine, who’s doing this amazing ride across the state, bicycle ride across the state with Justin Burke for children’s cancer. So you can learn more about that at Justin Burke’s page. Also a clean cuisine up here in Owings Mills, delicious crab cake. Brought me some squash lasagna, as well as some protein bars. John Hoey, who runs all things, why Central Maryland, who set all of this up, all the staff, everybody out there who’s made this thing happen. And I’m very, very appreciative, as well as Julian Jones, who came out, talked about the county, talked about Randallstown, talked about the Y and also I had Barry Williams out, who was involved, has been on the Y Board, who remembers fighting to get this building built back 20 years ago. So that’s Wanda could be out here helping people. Randall San and Eli could be out here. So it’s a real success story out here. What you guys doing here every day. So thanks for welcoming in me in I didn’t get to read everything that’s going on out here, but they can just come on and visit us. Man, we got playground, rock wall, family, game room, gymnasium, fitness, floor, group, exercise, sauna. It’s almost like a why? It’s almost like a fun place to be. Come on out. Be a part of it. Learn more at the why of Maryland. Why maryland.org? I’m signing off. I’m soaking wet. I wish I brought, if I brought the right skivvies, I just would have jumped in because I’m I’m already wet. I might as well be in the pool signing off in the Y here for the Juneteenth Celebration at the Y in Randallstown. We are W, N, S, D, A of 1570 task Baltimore, we never stop sweating through our clothes here at the pool, at the Y, where Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.