Sarah Bowman Miller
George Mason High School
Sarah Bowman Miller jumped in the water and discovered her calling at 13. That’s when she started teaching children with special needs to swim as a volunteer with Arlington’s Adapted Aquatics Program (AAP) at the Yorktown High School pool.
At the time, her hometown of Falls Church City didn’t have an AAP. So the summer after her sophomore year at George Mason High School, Miller posted a flier offering private lessons for kids with adaptive needs at her local pool (High Point, where she’d been on the swim team since age 6). The response was overwhelming. “Within a week, I had 20 clients,” she says.
Photo by Michael Ventura
Knowing that a city-sponsored program would make adapted aquatics more accessible and affordable for families, Miller pitched the idea to the Falls Church City Parks and Recreation Department and soon had municipal backing. Over the course of nine months, she then obtained her Water Safety Instructor certification, designed a comprehensive program (modeled after Arlington’s), recruited and trained nine teen volunteers and publicized the new course.
In the weeks before the first session, Miller called the parents of newly enrolled students to discuss their individual needs, objectives and motivators. “For example, one student may just be trying to stand in the water by the end of the session, whereas another may be working on stroke form,” she explains, noting that each student is paired with one volunteer for the entire program. “For a lot of these kids, routine is everything. Building relationships is important.”
Now 18, Miller graduated with a 4.327 GPA and plans to study neurobiology and cognitive-executive functioning at Dartmouth this fall—an interest she says was sparked by her time in the pool. Her International Baccalaureate extended essay examined how long-term exercise affects the brain.
Before graduation, she served as her school’s student body president and chair of its community outreach committee. During that time, she increased the number of school-wide annual service projects from one to four.
“Sarah is a consummate advocate [who] works tirelessly on behalf of students in the community to effect positive changes. She isn’t after a claim to fame,” says school counselor Nancy Goldman. “She leads with ease in all arenas of her life. It’s who she is and it’s what she does.” —Jenny Sokol