Senior lifeguards are stepping in to save city pools

When the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department held one of its lifeguard certification sessions in Center City earlier this month, one of the rookies — 17-year-old Jaelynn Edwards, found herself paired up with an unexpected swimming partner.

Her teammate for the day, Robin Borlandoe, was about her age when she started lifeguarding, too — back in 1968.

Now 70, Borlandoe has answered the city’s desperate call to address a severe lifeguard shortage. She is diving back into the pool at an age when most folks could be forgiven for needing a few extra minutes to get up from their deck chairs.

Edwards admitted that she wasn’t sure at first what to make of Borlandoe, who arrived at the certification session with a blue swimming cap, a pink and black one-piece adorned with a drawing of an orchid, and a silver anklet on her right leg.

“OK, I guess this is, like, my lifeguard grandma,” Edwards recalled thinking.

But by the end of the day, she learned not to sleep on the skills of Lifeguard Grandma.

Borlandoe may have had both knees replaced in 2008, but she still runs on a trampoline (easier on the joints), power-walks, spins, practices chair yoga, plays on a community softball team, and, of course, swims with the best of them.

“She really surprised me,” said Edwards, who’s a junior at Florence Township Memorial High School in Burlington.

“Sometimes she even helped me.”

It’s that spirit of service that Borlandoe said prompted her to become a lifeguard in the first place.

”I loved the job, absolutely loved it,” said Borlandoe, who started as a lifeguard in Kingsessing in the late 1960s. She still remembers the one save she made: a 7-year-old she saw struggling and scooped to safety.

That passion moved her again to respond to the Parks and Rec Department’s recruiting campaign for more lifeguards as the city scrambles to open all of its 65 public pools this summer.

The city is still about 60 lifeguards short of its goal, but it’s hoping to avoid a repeat of last summer, when a third of the pools weren’t able to open because there weren’t enough lifeguards to keep swimmers safe.

And in our city — where 75 children aged 18 and under have been shot so far this year — a closed pool is more than just an inconvenience. It’s a missed opportunity to keep children off the streets and safe.

It’s no wonder, then, that Parks and Rec has offered increased pay and gone door-to-door in some neighborhoods to drum up interest.

Borlandoe, who lives in Southwest Philly, is fully aware of what life is like in a city so severely challenged by gun violence. As a lifeguard, she sees a chance to not just keep children safe but to serve as a role model and give them a chance to reimagine their lives.

How can kids imagine being on a swim team, or being an Olympian, or even one of the six climbers — all of them Black — who recently reached the summit of Mount Everest, if they don’t have access to places and people who can help foster those dreams?

And this time around, she said, she has a new appreciation for the role.

“Now I’m coming at it with the eyes of a mother and grandmother who knows how to read feelings and reactions and emotions in a way I couldn’t when I was younger,” she said.

She hopes that will come in handy when dealing with children who are burdened with so much, or at least make them more apt to mind the pool rules.

After Borlandoe finished her first stint as a lifeguard, she graduated from West Catholic, where she played center on the girls’ basketball team, and went off to Gwynedd Mercy University before juggling a long career as a hospital office manager and parenting three daughters. Her six grandchildren, ages 21 to 3, call her “Oma Cool Ma.”

Lifeguarding became a distant, if fond, memory — until she learned about the city’s shortage in recent years. It’s been a nationwide problem, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and a hyper-competitive labor market where younger people who traditionally fill seasonal roles have a lot more options.

Borlandoe considered signing up last year but didn’t think she’d have enough time to train. Before taking lifeguard certification classes, aspiring lifeguards have to pass a test that includes swimming 12 laps, treading water for two minutes, and retrieving a 10-pound brick from the bottom of the pool to simulate saving a person.

This year, she trained for about a month at the Haverford YMCA and slayed the test, save for the dreaded brick, which took a little more practice before she was able to fetch it from the bottom of the pool.

Pool safety instructor Thelma Nesbitt, who at 60 is another age-defying senior and an icon on the city’s swimming scene, said of Borlandoe: “She’ll do well.”

There are 16 guards aged 50 and over this year; there were a dozen last year. But whatever older lifeguards may lack in stamina, Nesbitt said — and it’s not much — they more than makeup for with lived experience.

It’s a brilliant turn of events. Sure, I often fantasize about the day I can kick back and retire, but women like Borlandoe are a master class in how our senior years should be done: Don’t just age gracefully, age with purpose.