The cost of living crisis appears to have reached all the way to the pool, preventing Kiwi kids from learning to swim - or even swimming at all.
Swimsafer Week, which kicked off on Monday, aims to highlight the importance of learning to swim as young as possible.
Sammi and Cassie have been swimming since they were six months old. Those skills saved Cassie's life after she fell into a pool on holiday.
"It didn't freak her out because we'd done it lots of time at swimming lessons so she just knew to turn around and come up to the surfaces," mother Pennie O'Connor said.
Many kids don't know what to do. It's thought 48 percent aren't learning how to swim.
"We live in such a challenging social economic environment at the moment that it's just another thing that mum and dad can't afford," Water Safety NZ CEO Daniel Gerrard said.
Donating lessons through the Swim-It-Forward campaign opens the pool to more kids.
"Had a donation of $1000 come in this morning so I think it is hitting a mark. I am challenged that we're needing to go to a Givealittle page to support something like this," Gerrard said.
The cost of not knowing what to do can be deadly. This year 74 drownings have been deemed preventable. That could change if more kids take the plunge.
"We can be at the beach and they can be playing around the water and we don't even need to be in with them because we know that they're safe, they know what to do," O'Connor said.
So that everyone has a chance of making it out of the water.
