Keith Godley feels he missed out for most of his life being unable to swim.
"I feel like I missed a major fun activity of my life. I think if someone would have put me in the water when I was 11, like my daughter's age, that I would have gravitated towards it then and probably would be a fish by now," Godley said.
Godley 50, began swimming lessons along with his wife, Tanya, in January.
"I feel exhilarated when I get in the water, it's better than sitting around all day and drinking pop and waiting to die from heart disease," Godley said.
Godley suffers from hypertension and heart failure. He said he ignored the symptoms for years and it began to take a toll on his body. However, that was not what got him in the water.
"My daughter was invited to a birthday party at a water park, and me and her mom were apprehensive about letting her go swimming, because we were afraid. We thought that my daughter would drown to be quite frank," said Godley. "We said 'Baby you can't go; we don't trust the life guards. She's my youngest daughter, I have adult children and a grandson and I just, I'm not letting my daughter go, she can't swim."
Keanna, who was 11 at the time, was sad she couldn't go. Soon after, the Godleys discovered Detroit Swims.
The program was created by lifeguards at the Boll Family YMCA in Detroit in 2010. It teaches children 8 to 13 how to swim for free.
They enrolled Keanna. She was scared at first because she had nearly drowned at a waterpark a few years earlier.
"I was coming down the water slide and I just fell in and I couldn't get back up," said Keanna Godley. "The lifeguards eventually came and got me."
Detroit Swims takes children from being scared of the water to accomplished swimmers within a matter of weeks. Godley saw the transformation with his own daughter.
"Now she is an accomplished swimmer. She can swim in the deep end, she can back stroke, butterfly," Godley said.
Children living in urban communities like Detroit are three times more likely to drown than other kids, according to the Boll Family YMCA. According to a research study done by USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis, 70 percent of African-American and 60 percent of Hispanic/Latino children cannot swim.
The problem can also be generational, passed down from one generation from the next. If a parent cannot swim, there is only a 13 percent chance their child will learn how to swim.
"One of the concerns is that they pass that fear on to their children and so then it becomes a generational problem," Lori Trout, a swim instructor at the Boll Family YMCA said. "So if grandma didn't know how to swim and she was terrified of the water and she kept her children away from anything to do with the water, then that mother isn't going to want her children around the water and it just continues."
Coaches like Trout encouraged the Godleys to begin taking swim lessons.
"Miss Lori, she's a swim instructor down there, and I would just come and sit in the waiting room and watch my daughter swim and she said 'why don't you come, bring your family,'" Godley said. "When I first got in the water doctor, I fell in love with it."
Trout teaches both children and adults.
"They (adults) do come with fear and maybe some past experiences that they carry with them but you can also talk to them easily," Trout explains about teaching adults to swim.
Trout said adults can live their whole lives afraid of the water, but they don't have to do that.
"It's just never too late, it's a great life skill, it's a life-saving skill," Trout said.
As for the Godleys, Trout is happy with their progress so far.
"He is amazing. He comes down and swims three times a week, he gets the guards or whoever is here to help him, coach him, he is diving now, he is swimming his laps," Trout says of Keith.
Godley said he was motivated to swim because he doesn't ever want to put his daughter in the position of having to save him.
"I saw my daughter and I didn't want her to be responsible for me if we went on a boating trip one summer and I didn't want her to be responsible, 'Oh, let me help my fat dad,'" Godley said.
While Godley loves the recreation of swimming, there are health benefits for him too. His doctor recommended swimming and already he is seeing the results from the exercise.
"I've got a good balance. My hypertension is beautiful, last reading last Friday was 120 over 70," said Keith.
One of the very special benefits for Godley is to be able to enjoy swimming with his daughter.
"That has literally been one of the greatest, I don't even know if I could put it into words. Makes me almost want to cry because it's beautiful," Godley said.
Keanna is thrilled she can now get in the water with both her parents.
"I was happy, 'Yay, my parents can come swim with me now,'" Keanna Godley said.
Detroit Swims plans to offer swim lessons to parents of children in the program starting this fall.