The mayor of East Brunswick says that he wants to provide free swimming lessons to every child and adult who needs them after five people drowned in the town over the past seven months.

“Hopefully by the beginning of August. That would be our goal,” says Mayor Brad Cohen.

A 4-year-old boy drowned in a swimming pool at a kindergarten graduation party on the Fourth of July.

About a week earlier three family members also drowned in a backyard pool. An 8-year-old girl started to struggle in the pool and her mother and grandfather went in to help. None of them knew how to swim and they all drowned.

And in January, 13-year-old Yousef Khela drowned in a pond at the municipal complex after falling through the ice.

Cohen says that the plan is to provide the lessons so that people can get the swimming skills that they need. He says that he has no plans to use taxpayer funds.

“Our goal was to go out to the charitable community within the township to raise the funds for that program. I don’t doubt for one minute we will be able to find that,” he says.

Cohen says that he is planning to hold the lessons at the Crystal Springs Waterpark in town.