Tamarindo Lifeguards Back in the Towers

By Britton Jacob-Schram

Tamarindo’s lifeguard program has been reinstated.

Three lifeguards are now monitoring Tamarindo’s stretch of beach from 7am to 5:30pm. A fourth is to be hired next week.

The previous program, one of the nation’s only active lifeguard programs, was shut down by the Asociaciòn Pro Mejoras de Tamarindo (the Tamarindo Association) last October due to lack of funding.

However, a month after the lifeguards’ dismissal, 42-year-old tourist, Matthew McParland, drowned after being caught in a rip-current off Tamarindo.

According to the Association’s Executive Director Federico Amador, sisters-in-law Cheryl and Ann McKillican breathed new life into the program by door-to-door fundraising.

“It was so close to home for us, we just thought we’ve got to do this,” said Ann McKillican, one of McParland’s friends. “It was sort of a call to action.”

The two women are running the program through the Tamarindo Association, and are currently aiming at a $5000 a month fundraising mark — an amount, says Ms McKillican, which would expand the program by hiring another lifeguard. Currently, 17 sponsors have committed a total of $2800 a month, until the end of the year.

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The new program has been deemed in memory of McParland, a Chicago chiropractor and father of three.

“Right now we’re not working with Luis Hidalgo (Director of the National Lifeguard Association),” said Mr Amador, who explained their budget was simply out of the scope of the Tamarindo Association’s financial capabilities.

“We know we can’t raise the amount of money he’s asking for, and if we agreed to it [the quote]… we’d run out of money in two or three months.”

The Association had, for three years, paid the salaries of the lifeguards and rented life-saving equipment — such as “duck feet”, or swimming fins, CPR equipment and rescue tubes — from the Asociación Nacional de Guardavidas de Costa Rica (National Lifeguard Association), equipment which is now being donated little by little by the community.

Program organizers say the presence of lifeguards may also help Tamarindo regain the prestigious ecological Blue Flag Award, which the community was stripped of late last year.

“It wasn’t a matter of getting people on board,” says Ms McKillican of fundraising for the program. “It’s a matter of keeping the momentum.”

For more information, contact: amckillican3@gmail.com