Jason Foreman was on a casual stroll with his 4-year-old son Lucas near Cupertino’s Stevens Creek Dam when it suddenly turned into a nightmare.
He had looked away for just a few seconds to pull his phone out so he could snap a photo of his son enjoying the outdoors. When he looked back, Lucas had stepped into the deceptively shallow-looking water — and disappeared underneath it.
Foreman felt an instant rush of fear and adrenaline — not only because Lucas didn’t know how to swim, but also because he had been diagnosed with autism, putting him in a group 160 times more likely to drown than a neurotypical child. Instinctively, he jumped in after his son.
“It was a raging creek — I mean, he was gone,” Foreman remembers. “I jumped in there and was just slashing arms everywhere. I was able to grab him. I got kind of bashed up by the rocks, but I pulled him out. He’s just head-to-toe drenched. I’m drenched, and slapping water out of him as he’s coughing. That was scary. I mean, it was a few seconds, but it felt like minutes.”
That was 2021, and within a week, Foreman was scrambling for somewhere he could take Lucas for swim lessons — or at least a program that would make his son feel confident and safe around water. He already knew that extracurricular activities for autistic children were scarce, but when he found the only existing options were far away and extremely expensive, he was determined to get something started closer to their San Jose home.
Years before his current job working in the Menlo Park City School District’s Early Learning Center, he had spent several years doing childcare camps for the YMCA. He knew about their Safety Around Water (SAW) program for kids, so he approached some administrators at the YMCA of Silicon Valley, hoping that the program could be adapted for his son and other kids like him. They recognized the dire need for the program — according to the Autism Society, drowning is the cause of 91% of deaths among children with autism 14 years or younger.
What those conversations kickstarted was an SAW program for neurodiverse youth — now in its third year — that the YMCA hopes to expand this year at its Southwest and South Valley Family branches in San Jose with donations through Wish Book. The organization’s goal is $50,000, which will allow the YMCA to offer the inclusive, no-cost water safety instruction to 80 neurodiverse kids.
Wish Book donations will fund staff time for instructors and aides trained in neurodiversity-affirming practices to deliver one-on-one coaching; staff training in adaptive aquatics, adaptive materials such as flotation aids and sensory-friendly deck tools, and twice-weekly open pool time for neurodiverse youth, as well as targeted outreach to schools and disability-support networks.
Foreman had no idea back then what he was about to inspire, but he remembers that he didn’t hold back when pitching it to the YMCA’s administrative office.
“I just came in strong — stronger than I usually would — like, ‘Hey, you know, this is what we need. This is what the YMCA says it’s all about. I need you guys, man, I need you guys to do this.’ And I was very happy somebody actually responded to that,” he says.
At first, the YMCA staff didn’t know how they were going to help. Jeremy Lorenzen, Aquatics Director at Southwest YMCA, remembers that when they started a pilot program, they were flying somewhat blind. There was no material from the national YMCA on how to do it. Gradually, they figured out what training they would need to provide for staff, but ultimately, they needed guidance from members who had neurodiverse children about what they wanted to see in an SAW program.
“That first year, we invited families out,” Lorenzen says. “We said, ‘Hey, this is a new program for us. We want to learn how to best serve you, so we’d like to just invite you out to the pool to work together with us.’ The first year we did it, it was less about, ‘What’s the training?’ or ‘What’s the cost associated with this?” It was, ‘What’s the difference between group lessons or private lessons for neurotypical students and neurodiverse students?’”
What they learned turned out not only to be essential for starting an adaptive SAW program, but for improving their entire swim program, Lorenzen says. He relates it to the “curb cut theory,” which is that a change made for a specific group can often benefit society as a whole — for instance, the curb cuts in sidewalks that, while designed for wheelchairs, also aid everyone from bicyclists to parents pushing strollers.
“(Staff members) were saying things like ‘Oh, I learned this when I was teaching adaptation lessons, and I apply it to my group lessons now, and it works way better.’ Or ‘Now I do it in my regular private lessons,’” says Lorenzen. “By making it more accessible for a certain community, we’re making it more accessible for everyone. That was, I think, the biggest takeaway that first year.”
Kim Miller, executive director of Southwest YMCA, says the organization chose the expansion of the SAW for neurodiverse youth program as its Wish Book focus this year because there are so few options for parents like Foreman who need it.
“We said, ‘Let’s make this available for everybody, and let people know that we have it now — because that’s still a big roadblock for us, as we’re offering these lessons,” says Miller. “Ultimately, it would be great to be able to offer them at all the different branches. That’d be amazing.”
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Lucas Foreman, 9, from San Jose, poses for a photograph with his father Jason at the Southwest YMCA in Saratoga, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 26, 2025. Wish Book for the YMCA Safety Around Water program. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
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Lucas Foreman, 9, from San Jose, poses for a photograph with his father Jason at the Southwest YMCA in Saratoga, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 26, 2025. Wish Book for the YMCA Safety Around Water program. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
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One of the students at the Southwest YMCA’s adaptive SAW class for all three summers has been Lucas. His one-hour lessons focus on floating, treading, and safe entry and exit.
Foreman says he was worried at first that Lucas might have been traumatized by the incident at Stevens Creek. But he was surprised to find not only that Lucas was curious about the water, but that within just a week of instruction in the program, he could see the difference in his son’s confidence and skill. Three years later, Foreman is clearly feeling that despite the ongoing challenges, the YMCA program has brought him the feeling he was searching for when he first sought out help — that Lucas can be safe around water.
“He absolutely loves it. Enjoys every second of it,” Foreman says. “Coordinating the upper body and lower body, just the neuro-wiring, that’s a little tough. But, I mean, he’s got that down, you know? The excitement’s there. There’s not any fear. And when push comes to shove, he knows what to do.”
ABOUT WISH BOOK
Wish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.
WISH
Donations to the YMCA of Silicon Valley will allow 80 neurodiverse young people to experience the program. Goal: $50,000
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.
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