When my own toes first tentatively touched the cool waters of a swimming pool under the watchful eye of a patient instructor, I could never have imagined the profound impact that moment would have on my life. Now, I relive that pivotal experience through the lens of Micha Seal, CEO of Watermelon Swim, as she narrates the evolution of their swim school from a backyard haven to a beacon of water safety in the Tampa Bay community. On the Good Neighbor Podcast, we celebrate National Water Safety Month with an invigorating look into Watermelon Swim's forty-year commitment to equipping children with the skills to navigate the waters safely and confidently. Micah's inspiring narrative reveals how a family's love for swimming has rippled through generations, creating a legacy of lifesaving education and a future of buoyant dreams.
In the gentle wake of personal anecdotes, we're reminded of the importance of unwavering vigilance and the early introduction of swim lessons, echoing a sentiment shared by Shaq Barrett and his Arrayah Hope Foundation. Our conversation further explores how Micah's dedication to inclusivity within Watermelon Swim embraces students of all ages, ensuring no one is left behind. As the discussion flows into the broader currents of high-profile sporting events and the significance of consistent practice, we also glimpse the entrepreneurial spirit that propels Watermelon Swim's expansion and the birth of Sweet Peas Gymnastics. Join us as we navigate the delicate interplay of nurturing a family business while anchoring a community in the vital knowledge of water safety.
Watermelon Swim is a year-round learn to swim business that teaches swimming, safety, and survival from birth through adults. Watermelon Swim’s mission is to grow a community full of safer swimmers and reduce the risks while increasing confidence in and around water.
Always keeping our Core Values at the forefront (Family First, Integrity, Celebration, Passion and Extraordinary results, Watermelon swim offers free Water Baby classes for infants 0-5 months old. These classes are a great way to introduce parents and infants to the water while educating them on the importance of early and continuous swim lessons. Children under four years of age are the most at risk for drowning – formal and continuous swim lessons reduce the risk of drowning by 88%. Providing parents a low-risk way to dip their toes in swim lessons greatly helps to educate the community on the importance of starting swim lessons young and continuing them to develop strong, confident, and safer swimmers for life. Watermelon Swim also offers scholarships to children with disabilities who require private lessons but cannot afford private tuition. It is vital to Watermelon Swim that every child has the opportunity to learn to swim regardless of ability.
When my own toes first tentatively touched the cool waters of a swimming pool under the watchful eye of a patient instructor, I could never have imagined the profound impact that moment would have on my life. Now, I relive that pivotal experience through the lens of Micha Seal, CEO of Watermelon Swim, as she narrates the evolution of their swim school from a backyard haven to a beacon of water safety in the Tampa Bay community. On the Good Neighbor Podcast, we celebrate National Water Safety Month with an invigorating look into Watermelon Swim's forty-year commitment to equipping children with the skills to navigate the waters safely and confidently. Micah's inspiring narrative reveals how a family's love for swimming has rippled through generations, creating a legacy of lifesaving education and a future of buoyant dreams.
In the gentle wake of personal anecdotes, we're reminded of the importance of unwavering vigilance and the early introduction of swim lessons, echoing a sentiment shared by Shaq Barrett and his Arrayah Hope Foundation. Our conversation further explores how Micah's dedication to inclusivity within Watermelon Swim embraces students of all ages, ensuring no one is left behind. As the discussion flows into the broader currents of high-profile sporting events and the significance of consistent practice, we also glimpse the entrepreneurial spirit that propels Watermelon Swim's expansion and the birth of Sweet Peas Gymnastics. Join us as we navigate the delicate interplay of nurturing a family business while anchoring a community in the vital knowledge of water safety.
Watermelon Swim is a year-round learn to swim business that teaches swimming, safety, and survival from birth through adults. Watermelon Swim’s mission is to grow a community full of safer swimmers and reduce the risks while increasing confidence in and around water.
Always keeping our Core Values at the forefront (Family First, Integrity, Celebration, Passion and Extraordinary results, Watermelon swim offers free Water Baby classes for infants 0-5 months old. These classes are a great way to introduce parents and infants to the water while educating them on the importance of early and continuous swim lessons. Children under four years of age are the most at risk for drowning – formal and continuous swim lessons reduce the risk of drowning by 88%. Providing parents a low-risk way to dip their toes in swim lessons greatly helps to educate the community on the importance of starting swim lessons young and continuing them to develop strong, confident, and safer swimmers for life. Watermelon Swim also offers scholarships to children with disabilities who require private lessons but cannot afford private tuition. It is vital to Watermelon Swim that every child has the opportunity to learn to swim regardless of ability.
(813)229-7946 watermelonswim.com
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Sedita.
Speaker 2:
Hello out there and welcome to episode 166 of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I am your host, mike Sedita, and today we are joined by the CEO of Watermelon Swim, micah Seale. Micah, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:
I'm doing great.
Speaker 2:
How are you? I am great. Isn't it like Swimming Awareness Month? Or like this is the month right?
Speaker 3:
May is a really big month for swimming, for water safety awareness it is National Water Safety Month, so, yeah, it's a perfect time to have us here. We've got you on the right time.
Speaker 2:
We've got perfect timing for this. It's long overdue. So, just so you know what the Good Neighbor podcast is and how we got where we are back in 2020, during COVID, it was started in Southwest Florida as a way for people just like you business owners who are growing their business for you to communicate what you guys have going on to the community while being socially distant. Over the last four years, we're now a national brand. We have Good Neighbor podcast hosts in Denver, philadelphia, atlanta, all across the country. I'm lucky enough to be the person here in Tampa that gets to talk to business owners like you and full disclosure, as people are watching this and listening to this. I work with Micah and her team. You guys do some marketing in some of my communities. We love having you as a partner, but because it is Water Safety Month, we really wanted to have you on because I know you have some great things going on. So, first and foremost, just tell us a little bit about Watermelon Swim.
Speaker 3:
So Watermelon Swim is a learn to swim program. We have currently four locations in the Tampa Bay area. We've been teaching for over 40 years. My mom started it out of her backyard when I was a child and we started with nine children, and now we're currently at Watermelon Swim teaching between six and seven thousand a week. So, yeah, our mission is to spread water safety throughout the community and just make a community of safer swimmers, and so over the last 40 years we've used proven techniques to get these children to swim.
Speaker 2:
It's pretty amazing to think about the volumes. Like I had said to you when we were first talking, I've been to the Lutz location. I was to the Lutz location before you did the rebranding and all that stuff. It was different and every time I walk in there it reminds me when I was a kid, me and my brothers went to the Boys and Girls Club and just the smell of the chlorine in the pool I feel like my hair is going to get bleach blonde just if I'm in there too long, just from the chlorine in the air. But the really cool thing is for me, the reason I have a passion for it is when I was a little kid I was born in 1972. So I'm going to be 52 here in a couple of weeks and my brothers were six and eight years older than me. So my mother, as a safety precaution, we had a swim instructor come and teach me how to swim and I knew how to swim before I really knew how to walk, Like they had me and this is how old I am we had the old styrofoam bubble that we had in the back. So if you fell in, that's how I learned how to get used to the water and stuff.
Speaker 2:
But I've been in the facility and watched what you guys do and it really is amazing because it is it's a technical thing to teach kids and the environment. There is so much going on. Your instructors are amazing, not only the way they instruct, but the way they handle the volume of people that you have in and out of there, and then moms and dads are literally watching over every little move that's going on. So it's intense. Have you always been like you said? Your mom started this. Did you always have a passion for it? Or did you want to become like a lawyer or a doctor and just kind of decided to be an entrepreneur because the business was going great? How do you get into it where you're at now?
Speaker 3:
Right. So so I was raised in Tampa and I I would say that water runs through our veins. You know, in my family I was taught to go out into the Bay and collect seahorses and we'd sell them to China. My mom was an entrepreneur herself and she was always. She wanted to stay home. She had five children. She wanted to stay home and make money. My dad was a police officer with TPD and his first year he made like $3,000. And so to raise a family of five children in the Tampa Bay area, she just always felt like she needed to do something else. It was bringing in some income, and so we would go out first thing in the morning and push for seahorses and then come home, drive them and sell them to China. It was just incredible, just incredible.
Speaker 3:
My grandparents they actually moved from Chicago years ago when they first immigrated, I guess, to to Florida and they bought a spring and tarpon springs, and so they started giving swimming lessons to the locals and to open it as a private, a private pool, and so. So that really is how it all got started. So we're actually fourth generation swim instructors. So my grandparents provided it to the locals. My mom then started it out of her backyard. I then started working with my mom as a teenager and I thought I was going to be a nurse. I thought maybe I might be a cop. I mean just so many different things. But really I have an innate ability for teaching and so I love children, I love the water and it's just a perfect fit for me.
Speaker 2:
And then you were weighing which family business to go in and teaching kids water safety was way safer than becoming TPD.
Speaker 3:
Right, exactly, yeah, for sure, and it was just fun, and I'm actually very good at business, and I didn't realize that, of course, until I got older. But, and then I had six children of my own while I was, while I was growing the business with my mom.
Speaker 2:
So a couple quick questions, because you're talking about siblings and offspring and all this other stuff. Do any of your four siblings, are they involved in the business or have they all gone off and done different stuff?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I have two sisters that teach swimming lessons in Pinellas County and in Pasco County, and so, yes, and so they are still. They're under SEAL Swim School. And so I decided that our models were very different. I'm a year-round swim school. They're seasonal. They kept it very similar to how we started it out of the backyard, and I decided to take a different route, and so it was best for me. It was a total business decision to re-brand to Watermelon.
Speaker 3:
Swim, but we both have the same mission, which is to teach children to swim.
Speaker 2:
So I will tell you, the first time I was ever at your facility in Lutz, it was actually for your fall festival that you did with pumpkins and the whole works that you do, which I love because what I do in the community and what you guys are doing in the community, besides the water safety, you're clearly embedded and want to be a part of the community in Lutz and Wesley Chapel in South Tampa. Is it more difficult Because your business model is drastically different? I mean, there's a way, larger amount of overhead, there's an inherent cost with building a facility with a pool and all the other stuff that goes along with that. Is that when you started to figure out, hey, I'm pretty good at business, I know how to negotiate this and do that stuff, and that's when you decided to rebrand? Or were they in it with you because the location there has a pool in it? So were you guys all under seal team and then you, like they, decided to keep it the way it was and you wanted to bring it further along?
Speaker 3:
yeah, so that's pretty much how it how it went. My mom was um ready to retire and she had always wanted the family to have the seal name.
Speaker 2:
My last name is Seal it was almost like you were meant to do something in the water.
Speaker 3:
Yes, absolutely. Like you know, of course we're not going to go to SeaWorld, so I guess you know we'll just stay in the air. But yeah, so just really and truly. It was just a total business decision to make sure that I could fulfill my basically my dream as an entrepreneur, which is to continue to grow, not only to teach more swimmers, but to grow a team employees currently and 50 full-timers and we have developed a great a manager and training program, and so a lot of young adults don't really know what they want to do. They get into the business, into Watermelon Swim, and they realize, gosh, we love this culture, we love the mission and how can I actually make a living doing this? And so we have, we have people that have been with us 10, 15 years, that are supporting their families and supporting their families well, and they actually, you know, they do a great job, and we love being able to support these, these young business people.
Speaker 2:
Well, it's twofold right, like I mean people that have been with you for over a decade. It's a testament to your culture that you have there. That's first and foremost. But for you it's got to be fulfilling on two levels. Number one you have these 50 full-time employees, 175 people involved with the organization overall, to watch them grow and to be able to support a family, and that's part of your mom's dream that your new grandparents dream that you brought forward.
Speaker 2:
But then the other part of it. That's really cool and the year round business model is super important, especially here in Florida, because people do swim year round here in Florida but they're having babies year round in Florida and you want those kids to be safe right out of the gate. But the other part of it is watching some like. I had a friend of mine growing up. He didn't know how to swim until we were like 17. And I taught him just over and over, because some people are afraid of the water, some people are afraid to put their head under the water, some people are just have this inherent fear of this phobia for water. So watching someone learn how to swim and become self-sufficient in the water, that has to be incredibly gratifying for your team as well as for you. You're changing people's leisure activity in their life.
Speaker 3:
Right. So you gave this young man a gift for life, right? So in Florida, water is everywhere. Florida is almost like an island in itself. Florida, water is everywhere. Florida is almost like an island in itself, right, it's surrounded by water. We have retention ponds, everybody has pools, Like the opportunity to have a tragedy unfortunately is Higher probability. Yeah, I mean, it's real. Florida leads the nation in drowning for children under the age of four. So, yeah, it's super important and it's a great activity and a great gift to give your child.
Speaker 2:
So that brings us to one of the topics I really wanted to talk about with you. You know we're here in Tampa. The Tampa Bay Bucs are here. Shaq Barrett is a linebacker for the Buccaneers. He had an unbelievable tragedy. Go on like an unimaginable tragedy. I'm personally not a Bucs fan. I am a fan of people that handle themselves in a way like I'm a transplant.
Speaker 1:
I'm not like you, but.
Speaker 2:
I watch the Bucs, I go to games and stuff you. But I watch the Bucs, I go to games and stuff. But I'm talking about, as a human being Forget that he's a football player, forget that. He's a world-class athlete as a human being, the way he handled the tragedy that occurred in his life losing his daughter. He's now working with you guys to bring more awareness. Can you tell us a little bit about how that relationship came about and how you see it unfolding in the partnership?
Speaker 3:
Sure, shaq reached out to our team and basically he wants to bring awareness to the tragedy that happened to his daughter, araya. His foundation is called Araya Hope and you know he was great. He came out, he did a water safety to one of the local preschools. Watermelon Swim provides free water safeties to any schools, preschools, libraries, moms, groups, anybody that wants them, free of charge. We come and we, you know, talk about water safety.
Speaker 3:
Well, shaq joined us and presented this water safety to you know, 50 children sitting there and he did a fabulous job and as tough as it is for him to have gone through this tragedy just a year ago, he was phenomenal. Was he was phenomenal? I mean just his outlook, and he was so raw and open about what happened. And basically he said that they got complacent, in that you know, you get the alarms put on your windows when you build your home and the alarms on the gates, the pools and whatnot. And he said they, they turned them off, they got tired of hearing them and, just like other families that have experienced this type of tragedy, you never think it will happen to you, right? And so he was just very honest about you know, make sure that you are doing all the right things. Don't turn off the alarms. Make sure that you are closing, locking the gates, teach those babies to swim.
Speaker 3:
Basically, what we say at Watermelon Swim is to put a ring of safety around these children. You know, supervision is key. Supervision is not, you know, running in and checking the wash while the children are in the pool or mowing the lawn while they're swimming. Supervision is being there in arm's length in case an accident happens. Right Barriers, make sure that you have those locks on your door. Make sure that you have the alarm set. Make sure that your neighbors have locks on their gate if they have a pool. Right Like you just have to be really proactive as far as your barriers go. Cpr and first aid If an accident happens not just drowning but choking you know there's so many different things that can happen to children that if you know CPR and first aid, you can save their life and then, lastly, teach your babies to swim.
Speaker 2:
I'll tell you that for me, I grew up in the 70s. So, like in the 70s, people were driving, kids were driving without seatbelts, in the back of cars, parents were smoking and eating steak and no one thought anything of it. Driving kids were driving without seatbelts, in the back of cars, were just around, parents were smoking and eating steak and no one thought anything of it. So my mom, to be proactive in that way, to know that my brothers were six and eight years older than me and they were going to be mischievous and they were going to you know, let's throw Mikey in the pool and see what happens and whatever to teach me to swim really early on. It really did save my life and as I got older it turned into my brothers would have their friends over and they'd say I bet you, my four-year-old brother, could beat you in a race in the pool and it was kind of like it was always a thing. So I was always in the water as a kid and it's one of the greatest gifts because I watched my friend. Like I said, like I watched him, we'd all be hanging out and he just never felt comfortable in that environment. So it is a great partnership to have someone that's high profile and it does take a tremendous amount of courage. I couldn't convey the amount of respect I have for a human being that can get up and, like I, get emotional and I don't get choked up about a lot of stuff, but I get choked up when I just hear somebody conveying the pain that they went through in an effort to save other people from experiencing that same pain. So it's tremendous.
Speaker 2:
Let me ask you the two questions I was thinking about when we were talking about that from a kid's standpoint. What age range is like? Do you have I'm assuming you have kids, as little as infants? But do you go all the way up into where you're doing like adults like my friend who was basically an adult that you're teaching how to swim? How, like? What is the age range of students you teach?
Speaker 3:
right, so we teach. We teach babies as soon as their umbilical cord falls off, and then we will teach anybody that needs to learn how to swim. I think one of my oldest adults that we taught she was 86 years old and she said Look, we feel, I feel it's never too late to learn. I said, absolutely, let's go have some fun, right, that's awesome, yeah. So anybody that wants to learn, we can teach them.
Speaker 2:
And the other question I had because we're on kids and families and family trees and all that stuff out of your six kids, how many are involved in the day to day of the business that you're now grooming to be future entrepreneurs? So one day, hopefully, you can retire.
Speaker 3:
Right. So you know, as I was growing the business, I did have six children during that time. You know I was in the pool teaching 12, 12 hours straight, when before I had the indoor pools like this has really been my life, my life's work. But I remember when I built my home I I did not, I purposely did not build a pool at my house because I worked so much. You know I would leave first thing in the morning, take the kids to school and I wouldn't get back until after 830 at night.
Speaker 3:
And the thought of something happening to one of my children in the water while I'm there teaching the community how to swim, it just to me it just not. It just did not make sense. But they grew up in the swim business and I can remember one of my boys actually his birthday is today. He said to me he was 12 and he said he's 27 today. He said mom, mom, I'm 12. Why am I still in swimming lessons? And I'm like, look, I want you to be the strongest child out there. If someone else say you're at a birthday party and someone pulls you under because they got scared, I want you to know how to get out of it. I want you to be the strongest and the fastest and the smartest when it comes to water safety. And when you're 16 and 17 and you decide to be stupid and jump off a bridge, right, I don't want you to dive head first, because you know that diving head first is stupid. Jumping off a bridge is not smart. Let's be clear, right.
Speaker 3:
But, they're boys and it's Florida and there's water everywhere, and so so they. They grew up helping in the water, they grew up helping in the pool, teaching swimming lessons, and I now have three of them that are actual managers in our business. One is my daughter and then two of my boys.
Speaker 2:
So is there an age is the last question I have about like teaching type stuff but is there an age when the because there's a component to like you were saying about your son, like there's the, the skill of actually swimming, there's your lung capacity, there's knowing what to do in in a situation? But from a, from a motor skills standpoint, is there an age when you start to see a child go from, kind of because being in water is sort of like that natural state, right? I mean, we're conceived and then we're in this incubus for nine months? Water almost feels like that for me.
Speaker 2:
It feels like that safety, that comfort of where I'm supposed to be, but I'm used to it feels like that safety, that comfort of where I'm supposed to be, but I'm used to it. Is there an age when kids start to develop the actual motor skills, when they're not flailing and they actually know the way to pedal their arms, pedal their legs, how to breathe with their head movement? What age does that happen? Or is it different for everybody, just based on how they grow?
Speaker 3:
It is different for everyone. It's also different on you because of your experience and because of opportunities. So if you have a pool at home and you're swimming all the time, you know you're going to just be more of an efficient, not so much a recreational swimmer, right? So the thing is it really depends on what swimming means to you. Some people come in and they want their children to go through the entire program to where they know all four strokes and then they can go on the swim team. Some want them to just be water safe. So a child's memory doesn't become permanent until about four years of age, and so repetition is key. You have to keep them swimming or they will. You know, if you don't use it, you lose it Right. So repetition and year round swimming is super, very, very important.
Speaker 2:
You know it's funny. You say that because, as a kid living in New Jersey, the pool I mean the pool didn't open until the end of May, early June, and it was closed by September. So you only had June, july and August. So when I was a little kid you're right Like every year I'd have to remember how to be able to dive off the diving board and how to position my body, and it wouldn't take long, I mean, once I got back in the swing of things.
Speaker 2:
But there was that initial first time of getting back into it, because your brain just shuts it off when you live up there for that extended period of time. Let me ask you this question you know the Olympics is coming in the summer. Do you see and this is kind of like a business question, or maybe it's kind of a marketing question that we could talk about on a different level later but when something like that, an event like Michael Phelps, is out there and he's this icon of the skill set that you're teaching kids, do you see an influx of students or just doesn't make a difference?
Speaker 3:
We don't really see an influx of students. What we see is just excitement around the sport.
Speaker 2:
So, as that's going on this summer, you're just going to see the excitement level in the pools. Just go through the roof.
Speaker 3:
Right, and as far as marketing and you know that type of thing, yes, you can use that to just bring it into your culture and make things a little more exciting and interesting.
Speaker 2:
So we've talked about you, know where you came from, how you got started. All this stuff you do when you are not in the pool or when you're not being a power business woman like you are. What do you like to do to let off steam? What do you do for fun? The kids are all getting a little bit older so that you're probably not going to little league and uh soccer practice anymore. How does micah let off steam when she's out of the out of the shop?
Speaker 3:
and so about six years ago, um, I decided that I wanted something to do with these children, that they would all like something that I could call my own with them. I had recently had gotten divorced you know, after 30 years from their dad, and I was like I need something for us, and so I bought a boat. And so I bought a boat. I bought a boat. I didn't know how to drive the boat, and I actually had the boat for a year before I told the children that I got the boat because I wanted to make sure that I could drive it.
Speaker 3:
You're the safety person. I have to make sure that I knew how to drive that boat. I knew all of the water safety rules. The boat rules make sure I could dock it safely and anchor it safely by myself with those children. And there's I mean, I told you I have six. And then when they bring friends or significant others, I mean there's a lot, yeah. And so that's what I do is I I boat, I love to drive it, I love to go to islands, I love to fish, I love to be around?
Speaker 2:
Where do you? Do you dock it in, like Dunedin, Like where do you? Where do you leave it?
Speaker 3:
So I actually leave it in the back of my house. I live on a river. And then I just get out into the open waters within about 25 minutes and, yeah, can go fishing, can go fishing, can go island hopping, restaurant hopping.
Speaker 2:
yeah, just have a little fun in the sun so you're not subscribed to the the best two days of a boat owner's life, yet you're still loving it and you, they say the first day and the day they sell it right, the two favorite days. You like doing all the stuff, you like cleaning it and doing all right, you know that's how they, let's see let's be clear, I don't really clean it. Oh okay, well I do have five boys, so you have manual labor built in. You're all set, you're all right, I did.
Speaker 3:
I did level up. I went from a 25 foot um console boat to a uh 32, so yeah, well, it's a big boat with a lot of kids.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, it fills up quickly. Sure, I get that. So. So we've talked about what you do for fun. We've talked about the business, but let's talk about next steps. Where is Watermelon Swim going? I know you have the location in Lutes and South Tampa and Wesley Chapel and Riverview. I know you're building a location in Brooksville. What are the next like? Where are we going to see you next?
Speaker 3:
Right. So actually in Brooksville I am diversifying and we are opening a little gymnastics called Sweet Peas, and so it has great synergy with the swim school. It'll be right around the same age as our biggest demographic, which is, you know, zero to five, and so that'll, that'll open at, hopefully, in October of this year.
Speaker 2:
And it's taking a while. It's taking a while.
Speaker 3:
It all takes. It all takes time. You know, just today I've owned, I bought property in Brandon and today it got passed for rezoning so and it's taken a year to get there. So you know, growing a business and leveling up it takes time, it takes patience and it takes a lot of work. But, in my opinion, teaching more children to swim and be safer and reduce the drowning rates, that is what it's all about.
Speaker 2:
And for the entrepreneurs that are listening to this, that are getting started, that are maybe where you were 20 years ago. What would be the one thing that you would say to them? Like listen, hire. Like you said earlier, like you don't know what you don't know, Would that be the most important thing, Like knowing what you do well and hiring people, or bringing people on as partners to kind of fill in the gaps for you? What would be your bit of advice to give to an entrepreneur?
Speaker 3:
So what I would say is that at the beginning, you do it all right, you wear all the hats and you have to know how to do it all and then be the best of the best. But as you grow, your business grows and different needs become apparent, and so what I would say to entrepreneurs is to put your weaknesses around you, put the people that are just smart about a certain topic that maybe you are weaker and like as entrepreneurs we can't be, we're not trained in everything, not everything.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
For example, a doctor opens a business, opens his own practice. Well, he wasn't trained in business, right, he knows doctoring, and so it's just putting those weaknesses around you. Bring in the marketing person that really knows what they're doing. Bring in the banker that has that relationship with you. Like DFCU and me, we've had a fantastic for relationship for about 10 years now. Um, what credit union dfcu? Okay, it used to be first citrus and then they. They rebranded. But when I first got started and I, my mom and I were trying to find money, nobody would give us money. No one. They're like a swim school. What's a swim school?
Speaker 2:
Two women. They're your partner. I mean, they're your partner. You're going to be partnered with them because they believed in you and no one else believed in you. That's great, you know. That's a great way. That's a great story to tell.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so you definitely need to build those relationships. I'm one that you know. When you become my partner, when you become someone that I trust and I value, you're pretty much here to stay.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it sounds like you know, when you're talking about people that have been with you for 10 plus years, when you have that relationship, it's almost like they become part of the seal family. You know they. It's like. It seems like the culture and the environment and the people that you have on board there. When you're giving value to them and they're giving value to you, that's a win-win relationship across the board for everybody. Let me ask you this as we start to wrap this up If I'm a parent right now, or even if I'm not a parent, if I'm a mom who is seven months pregnant, how soon do they get to you? How do they get to you? What's the easiest way to find a location to connect to your team and how do you get started? Do I just call up, show up, what do I do?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So I would go to watermelonswimcom and go to our website. We have an enroll form right on the website. You can also call us at 813-229-7946 and just call and talk to one of our customer service reps and they can walk in and take class with their babies and really kind of feel what our culture's about. Learn how to work with your baby in the water before you start that official swim lessons, where they're, you know, learning how to hold their breath, go underwater and you know all the great things there is associated with swimming.
Speaker 2:
So, folks, if you're listening to this, the easiest place to go if you don't want to talk to anybody is watermelonswimcom. You can find out what location you're nearest. You can get some information. You can fill out the form to sign up right there on watermelonswimcom. If you feel you want to talk to somebody because you're not sure you might have, questions 813-229-7946. We've had the pleasure of being joined by Micah Seale. She's a CEO, woman-owned business, fourth generation. She cares about your kids. She cares about keeping them safe. Her partnership with Shaq Barrett and the Ray of Sunshine Foundation, ray of Hope Foundation sorry, go check out Watermelon Swim. They're an asset to the community. They're a big part of what we do in the community with our publications. We love working with them. Micah, thank you so much for being a great neighbor, but thank you for being on the Good Neighbor Podcast.
Speaker 3:
All right, thank you so much. And teach those babies to swim, get them in the water. People.
Speaker 2:
Get them in the water.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast PASCO. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnppascocom. That's gnppascocom, or call 813-922-3610.