Five City Of Tulsa Pools Open For Summer Thanks To Private Donations

By Tara Vreeland, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Remember those endless summer days when you were a kid? Many probably involved a swimming pool and thanks to private donations, a few of Tulsa's pools are now open. But that almost didn't happen.

The city budget for pools went down the drain.

"Last year we had seven pools and that involved a lot of taxpayer money and quite a bit of private donations," said Bob Hendrick, Tulsa Parks.

But Tulsans dove in to help with the public pool drought.

"This year we are opening five pools, all of it with private donations. We are pretty proud of that and that's about $250,000 that we have been able to raise," said Hendrick.

Making a splash this summer -- McClure, Berry, Whiteside, Reed and Lacy pools.

"Looking back several years ago when I was a kid, if you didn't have a pool to go to in the summer, summer didn't happen. That's part of your summer vacation is being able to go to the pool," said Hendrick.

Families found countless reasons to enjoy the free swim at the annual "Beach Bash."

"Because it's hot, it's summer and it's the time to swim," a swimmer named Zach said. 

"The water is really nice actually. You get in and you get used to it right away," said a swimmer named Tina.

And since summer is just warming up, the pool is the cool place to be.

"You could do it all summer long. You never get tired of it. You might get tired when you go home, but you never get tired any other time," Tina said.

The city pools will be open until mid August.