My summer job: A Philly lifeguard shares what it takes to keep the city swimming

My Summer Job is a weekly series that explores the jobs of seasonal workers in Philadelphia. Each week, we’ll share stories from a typical day in the life of the people who make summer happen in the region.

Milan Howell walks a little taller than she used to. She used to be a quiet person, she said, but she’s learned how make herself heard using a bigger voice, and sometimes her lifeguard whistle.

The City of Philadelphia announced last month that all 61 of its public pools will be able to open this year, even as a national shortage of lifeguards continues. In recent years, some pools were too understaffed to operate.

Howell is one of the nearly 400 lifeguards who keep an eye on swimmer safety at the city’s pools and teach young Philadelphians — her neighbors — how to swim.

The Inquirer spent a few hours on the job with Howell to learn a bit more about the work it takes to keep the city swimming.

As a second-year lifeguard at West Philadelphia’s Tiffany Fletcher Recreation Center, it’s clear that Howell takes her role seriously. She makes sure to get a full 10 hours of sleep before every shift, and comes stocked with a cooler full of water bottles each day. During the school year she works part-time at a restaurant, but during the summer, lifeguarding is her main commitment, she said.

Beginning in early July, the day starts with camper swim from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., when children enrolled in the rec center’s summer day camp use the pool and get swim lessons. Sometimes lifeguards will also drill safety procedures during that time, Howell said

Later in the day, from 3 to 5 p.m., other children can get lessons from lifeguards as well. The youngest kids Howell has worked with are around 7 years old, and the oldest are in their early teen years.

In between, Howell spends her time watching the swimmers to make sure they’re following the rules, monitoring for safety concerns, and helping her fellow lifeguards and pool maintenance attendants keep the pool and surrounding area clean. If it starts to rain heavily or there’s thunder or lightning, they move into the recreation center building and wait it out. Otherwise, her summer days unfold on the pool deck, seven days a week.

As she prepared for the pool to open on a late-June Friday, over a dozen young children played on the splash pad and playground nearby. One school-age child sat in a swimsuit inches from the pool fence, staring at the water on the other side and awaiting her chance to jump in.

A few minutes before 1 p.m., staff opened the gate and Howell guided the swimmer to sit on the pool’s edge, reciting the safety rules to the audience of one. The swimmer asked if she could borrow a pair of goggles, and Howell, without hesitation, offered a pair of her own to her younger neighbor.

“Just give them back to me before you leave,” Howell responded, untangling the strap from her ponytail.

As the afternoon stretched on at Fletcher, the pool filled with more kids and teens. Howell watched them each carefully, noting it’s important to stay alert and it helps to watch the faces of the swimmers. Staring at the water makes it too easy to get drowsy, she said.

Many of the faces are familiar, including the kids she taught to swim last year.

Howell was visiting the rec center over a year ago when she saw a board covered with employment opportunities for teenagers. She noticed the lifeguarding job paid more than the rest. Howell had enjoyed swimming as a kid and liked the idea of getting back to it. “I was also looking for something to keep me in shape,” she added. So she started training.

On the weekends, she went to Friends Select Aquatics to build stamina and relearn how to time her breathing as she moved through the water. She made the trip to Lincoln Pool in Northeast Philadelphia for her swim test, and later for her CPR and rescue training. The trip to Lincoln was over an hour each way, she said.

“I was able to meet some of the lifeguards there and talk to them and that was really nice,” Howell said. “This year I actually went back there to help train a couple other lifeguards.”

This spring, Howell was eager to come back for another year of lifeguarding, and she even recruited her cousin to take the test and work with her at the Fletcher pool.

The Fletcher pool was one of the first to open in the city this year. With a minimum of two lifeguards needed to open, Fletcher has five on staff.

Lifeguards at the rec center quickly become friends with each other, Howell said, given that they spend eight hours a day together most days of the week.

The facility, formerly known as Mill Creek Recreation Center, was renamed just days before the pool reopened, to honor Tiffany Fletcher, a parks and rec employee who was killed in September after being struck by a stray bullet outside the rec center. Howell saw Fletcher at the pool everyday last summer, she recalled. “She was definitely a big influence in the playground and at the pool.”

Howell said she thinks about Fletcher a lot. People in the neighborhood seemed worried and tense in the months following Fletcher’s death, Howell said. It’s reassuring to have a police officer on site, she noted, gesturing to the tent where the officer sat with pool maintenance staff.

“Most of the time I just kind of hope for the best,” Howell said. “I don’t want to let being scared ruin my summer because, I mean, there’s gonna be dangers everywhere in the world.”

In addition to the confidence she’s gained from lifeguarding, Howell said she’s learned patience too, from working with mostly children each day. Teaching them to swim is her favorite part of the job.

“They’re a little rambunctious at times, but I like getting into the water and showing them essential skills that are important to have later on in life,” said Howell, adding that her mom is a swimmer and taught her to swim at a young age. “It’s flabbergasting sometimes the amount of people that can’t swim.”

She’s already planning to come back in 2024, and is training for the lifeguard test that must be passed every two years. For a summer job, it takes a lot of pre-planning and effort to get trained.

“But overall, I think it was worth it,” Howell said. “I really enjoy being here.”