toledoblade.com --

Wanda Jean Butts confronted the horrible grief and pain she suffered when her bright, funny, athletic son Josh drowned three years ago and determined that no other parent should feel the same wrenching loss.

Her decision to find a way to help other minority children learn to swim made absolute sense for her, a way to “turn tragedy into triumph.” More than 300 people in the Toledo area have benefited from her commitment.

Consumed by sorrow after Josh's death at Bird Lake in Hillsdale County during the summer of 2006, the Toledo native couldn't stand knowing that other parents might feel that degree of overwhelming grief.

“I was thinking, ‘What could I do, how could I help someone not feel the way I do with this horrible pain and agony that I feel all the time?'” she said.

Her questions gave birth to the Josh Project.

According to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, minority children die from drowning at a much higher rate than their white counterparts. The most recent statistics show that black children between ages 5 and 19 are 2.6 times more likely to die in the water than are white children of the same age.

Ms. Butts said Josh didn't know how to swim when he went out on a raft on Bird Lake. He fell off the raft and as he struggled, no one could save him.

“Josh got out too far, but his friends were back up on land and by the time they got to Josh, it was too late,” she said.

He was a student at Toledo Accelerated Academy, a charter school, and was active in sports, enjoyed drawing and working on computers, and was a natural conversationalist.

Ms. Butts, who works in Toledo Lucas County Municipal Court, has one other child, an adult daughter.

She said African-Americans generally don't have as many opportunities to learn to swim as whites do and she believed she needed to take action.

“We drown and nobody does anything about it,” she said.

The lessons in the Josh Project are offered in four, half-hour sessions that occur over four-week periods at St. Francis de Sales High School.

Sanctioned through USA Swimming and the Greater Toledo Aquatic Club, they cost $10 per four-class session.

The youngest participants are 3 years old.

Children should learn how to swim, just as they learn how to prevent fires or how to cross the street, Ms. Butts said, calling swimming a “life skill.”

Her efforts have paid off with national exposure, including a feature story that first aired last night on HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. It was in a segment about teaching minority children how to swim.

She said the producers took her to Bird Lake this year to film the segment, which was difficult for her.

The episode will run five more times over the month on HBO.

But the experience brought her a form of closure.

“It was good for me to see the place where he took his last breath,” she said.

She's also confronting her own fear of the water, taking lessons through the project that she helped form. Each day that she's there to swim, she takes pride in what her son helped create.

“It's a healing thing to know that if it hadn't been for my Josh, they wouldn't be learning how to swim,” Ms. Butts said. “It won't bring my son back, but that's OK because nothing will bring him back. But he lives on through the Josh Project.”

To learn more about the Josh Project, call Ms. Butts at 419-973-1383. The next four-week session begins Oct. 17 and sign-ups are Oct. 3 from 2 to 4 p.m. at St. Francis, 2323 West Bancroft St.

Contact Rod Lockwood at rlockwood@theblade.com or 419-724-6159.

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