Mid-morning on July 14, four boys ages 8 and 9 took to Crescent Lake, thrashing and splashing in the fresh water. It was sunny and windy in Raymond as their parents and guardians sat on the bank watching the swim lesson began.

Standing in the water with the boys was Charlotte Phillips, a lifeguard. Although the swim program has been running for three weeks, it was Phillips’ second day on the job.

Phillips is employed by Camp Agawam, a private summer camp in Raymond, and was “on loan” to the town’s swim program for the day.

Every Child A Swimmer, run by the Raymond Recreation Association at Crescent Lake, has provided affordable swim lessons to area children for nearly five decades. But this year, the program’s mission faced a difficult challenge when organizers couldn’t secure a lifeguard.

The solution, as envisioned by Pat Smith, former president of the rec association, with help from three of Raymond’s private summer camps, was to borrow a lifeguard from a local summer camp every day of the program.

Private overnight summer camps are fixtures on the waters of Raymond, Casco, Naples and Bridgton. Tuition at these camps averages $5,000 for a three-and-a-half week stay, and upward of $9,000 for seven weeks.

Given the region’s proximity to major lakes and ponds, Smith said, it’s important all children, regardless of their economic status, be able to swim. The fee for the Raymond Rec program is $35 per child and scholarships are available for families who need them. The expense of running the program averages $2,500 each year, so the program is subsidized by donations and fundraisers.

Smith said she recognized in late May there was a real threat to the program, and called some of the area camps to see if they had ideas about how to find a lifeguard.

“Linda Suitor, director at Camp Timanous, suggested that ‘if every camp donates a guard, we can make this work,’” Smith said. “I was intrigued by the idea and her enthusiasm.”

That was approximately two weeks before the program’s June 27 start date, she said. One week before the lessons were scheduled to start with instructor Pam Synk, camps Agawam and Kingsley Pines had also agreed to supply a lifeguard and a schedule for coverage was pieced together.

To ensure coverage, the program had to be cut from five days per week to four. It started June 27, and had its final day on July 21.

The three camps loaned one lifeguard for the 2½-hour program every morning. There were four half-hour lesson groups, and the 24 children who signed up were assigned to a group based on their level of ability. The days have been divided more or less evenly among the three camps, but Smith said when drafting the schedule, “no one worried about equitably, just about coverage.”

“To realize that other people understood and recognized the importance of the program,” she said, “and the fact we could collectively pull it off, it’s a very satisfying thing.”

During the swim lesson on July 14, the four boys practiced the backstroke and  kicking technique and asked their lifeguard for assistance.

Phillips is from Connecticut but has spent the past 12 summers at Raymond summer camps – eight at Camp Wawenock for Girls and four with Agawam. She said she feels “lucky” to spend her summers in western Maine.

“It was a no-brainer to utilize the skills camp has given me to give back to the community,” she said.

Besides the obvious hard skills of swimming she’s learned at camp, Phillips said she’s also learned to value community service, an important piece of Agawam’s mission. Donating her services to the swim program, she said, “is a lucky extension of that mission.”

The swim program’s instructor, Synk, brought the lifeguards to and from camp to the swim program every day. She said swimming is an important skill because it builds confidence that extends not only to the water, but also to other challenges as well.

Synk attended summer camps as a child and considers it a privilege, she said. She said it was “a wonderful thing” for the camps to “embrace the give-back philosophy” and donate their services.

The leaders at the three Raymond camps also see the lifeguard-lending program as fitting into their mission as summer camps to provide children with safe and fun experiences on the water.

As lake-based summer camps, Suitor said, “we all support children (and) we all support swimming programs. We’d hate to see people not have swim lessons just because there’s no lifeguard.”

“It’s the first time we’ve been able to help the town on something like this,” Suitor said, “and it was an easy thing for us to do.”

Charlotte Phillips helps Eduard Anghel, 8, float on his back in Crescent Lake during Raymond Recreation’s summer swim program. Phillips is a lifeguard at Camp Agawam, and one of the many volunteers from three local summer camps that have helped keep the swim program afloat.

Pam Synk, center, instructs her swim class on Crescent Lake with help from Charlotte Phillips, right.