Above: Many swimmers were at Sherburn’s indoor swimming pool on Sunday afternoon to take advantage of a free swim offered by Martin County West Community Education and Recreation.

SHERBURN– On Sunday afternoon the indoor pool in Sherburn was packed with swimmers. While open swim is offered most weekends, Sunday’s swim was free thanks to a donation to Martin County West Community Education and Recreation.

Nickole Bowie, MCW’s CER director, said this was the second sponsored swim they’ve offered.

“I had someone reach out who was interested in getting more people into the swimming pool. They came up with the idea and I thought it was fantastic,” Bowie said.

The person who came up with the idea anonymously donated the funds for the fist swim and for Sunday’s swim, a different individual donated the money to host it, also anonymously.

While the first one saw good attendance, Bowie was really happy with the amount of people who showed up on Sunday.

“Sometimes when you start something it takes awhile to catch on. Some people didn’t hear about it the first time in December so by word of mouth I think a lot more people were at the second one,” she said.

On Sunday, Bowie said there were 77 swimmers and 30 people in the balcony.

“Yesterday was a big deal,” Bowie said with a laugh.

She shared that she asked around and while many were from the MCW school district, there were also some from Truman and a good amount from Fairmont.

Despite the six lane, heated, indoor pool being located inside MCW elementary school for years, Bowie said there are many people in the area who are unaware of it.

“I talked to five or six people (Sunday) who had no idea we had an indoor pool in Sherburn. Part of the reason we want to do this is to get the word out that we have this little gem and it’s available for use. It’s a good place to be, especially in the cold,” Bowie said with a laugh.

The pool is also used by the elementary, middle and high school students during physical education classes.

“All of our students get the opportunity to swim for a couple of weeks a couple of times a year. We put 946 kids in the pool in the month of December,” Bowie said.

Nearest to the area, the Jackson and St. James school districts both have indoor pools.

Along with students utilizing the pool, it’s also available for community use.

“Adult open swim is $4 and student open swim is $3 as well as fitness swim, water aerobics and special needs swim. They’re all $3,” Bowie said.

The pool is also available for private rentals, such as birthday parties, starting at $50.

Open swim takes place most Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. and while they get a good amount of swimmers then, it’s nothing like what the free swim brought on Sunday.

“It’s such better attended as a free community event and that’s our purpose,” Bowie said.

She said they’re looking at holding another one early on in March that will also be sponsored by a person in the community. The date is still to be determined as they’re lining up lifeguards for it.

Bowie said they have a limited pool of lifeguards, but the ones they do have are very flexible to work with scheduling wise.

“With larger pool parties we need more guards so it’s a little bit of a challenge but we’ve worked it out,” Bowie said.

The free swim allows for a fun family event anyone in the community can take part in. While it’s proven to be a popular event to hold during the cold winter months, Bowie would like to see it continue beyond winter.

“If we can get sponsors, we would love to hold one once a month. That’s our goal,” Bowie said.

More information on open swim and other events, including dates and times, can be found at martin.k12.mn.us by clicking community pool under the community education tab.