Pawtucket Police & Fire rush to become lifeguards to “open the pool for our community”

Pawtucket to Open Fairlawn Pool with Assistance of Public Safety Personnel 

Pawtucket will be opening the Fairlawn Veterans Memorial Park Pool in the coming weeks thanks to the efforts of the Public Safety Department to provide lifeguards for the facility.  

Pawtucket, like many other communities, struggled to find those interested in the open lifeguard positions this summer, which were necessary to open the pool. 

After months of solicitation, including reaching out to our youth in Pawtucket for applications for the open certified lifeguard positions, competitive wages, and incentives like the reimbursement of the certification, the Pawtucket Police and Fire Departments have offered to certify some members of the departments to serve as lifeguards in order to open the pool. 

“We are all working together to open the pool for our community,” said Mayor Donald R. Grebien. “We understand how much it means to our community to have this facility open. I want to thank the cooperation of Pawtucket Fire Fighters and Police officers for stepping up and their willingness to be flexible and assist us. We are working as quickly as we can to provide that opportunity.” 

The members of the departments will be certified over the weeks of July 5th and July 12th in order to have enough staff to open the pool. The facility opening will be based on the completion of this training and more details on the days and hours will be updated as enough individuals are certified.  

More information will be made available at http://www.pawtucketri.com/parks-recreation-department.  

The City of Pawtucket’s open job posting for lifeguards is still active and anyone interested is still welcome to apply. All candidates must be 16 years of age. Lifeguard certification information can be found at https://riparks.com/lifeguard-certification.php#req/. Lifeguards must have an up to date American Red Cross Certification for Lifesaving (non-surf), up to date American Red Cross Certification for First Aid / CPR / AED, and a friendly, upbeat attitude to work with the youth and public.  

In an exclusive story last week in RINewsToday, Ray Rickman of Stages of Freedom offered to compensate new lifeguards answering the call in Pawtucket an additional $4/hour to work through the summer. Still, no applicants for the positions as of now.