06-29-2023 Howard Magazine - Flipbook - Page 15
Roslyn holds an imaginary coral
creature she made from painted
telephone wires and
braided plastic
tubes in a
recycled container.
This year, the larger Jeffers Hill Pool
will be the one transformed. The event,
scheduled for the weekend of July 22 and
23, is free. However, to handle expected
crowds, participants must register for
90-minute a time slot.
It will take a full day for the Zinners
and volunteers to arrange the brightly
colored objects in paths throughout
the pool. They’ll also surround the pool
with some 60 shower curtains they’ve
collected over the years showing aquatic
scenes, so swimmers won’t be pulled out
of their snorkeling reverie when they
look up.
The Zinners, who live in Columbia
and love to travel and snorkel, launched
Coral Reef Encounter in 2019, though it
was paused in 2020 and 2021 because of
COVID-19.
Roslyn, a potter, mosaic artist and
social worker, got the idea while swim-
ming laps one day.
“I was thinking about how boring the
pool bottom is,” she recalls. “I thought
about the times we’ve been snorkeling in
the Caribbean and how we’d look down
and it’s amazing and beautiful. I was
thinking, ‘It’s a shame you can’t have a
coral reef in a swimming pool.’ And then
I thought maybe I could.”
Her husband David, 73, agreed, and
together they got to work. “We brought
the idea to the Columbia Association, and
they said they would furnish the pool and
lifeguards,” says Roslyn. “We would do
the rest.”
Roslyn and local artist Tauna Caffey
made the coral and hundreds of fish. “I’m
the noncreative one,” says David, a retired
finance guy and executive director. “I
help with logistics, setting up the registration on the website, schlepping stuff,
testing things to see if they float and sink.”
Columbia Association spokesperson
Dannika Rynes watched from the side of
the pool during the recent testing session.
“It was very popular last year, and it’s so
nice that they do this at no cost,” she says.
David offers a small correction. Yes, he
and Roslyn create and install the Coral
Reef Encounter for free. But, he says, “we
get paid in smiles.”
To register to volunteer or to swim:
coralreefencounter.org
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