With summer in full swing, more than 500 9- to 17-year-olds are storming local beaches as part of the San Diego Junior Lifeguard program. The two-session program started in June and will run through mid-August. “The classroom is great, but to get them out there and not just let them hear about it or see it on a video — they get to live it,” said program manager James Murphy. “It’s learning by doing.” Thanks to a new location at south Mission Beach, the Junior Lifeguard program added a handful of new recruits this year. The program rotates between south Mission and Santa Clara daily with weekly trips to city beaches in La Jolla, Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach. “We’re trying to add new things to the program and hopefully can expand it from here into other areas in the not too distant future,” Murphy said. “We want to keep kids engaged in healthy things.” The first session of junior lifeguards visited Ocean Beach on July 7 and the second session will visit OB Aug. 11. An annual tradition of the program is the OB Pier jump, when junior lifeguards take the plunge from 30 feet above the ocean. The jump was a focal point of the July 7 Junior Lifeguard session in Ocean Beach. Students in the program are split up into three groups — “A,” “B,” and “C,” — based on age and time in a 100-meter swim. The top lifeguards in the “A” class are “Cadets.” “It’s a lot of jumping and shouting and having fun when they’re younger and then we get more into competition and do things, and then when they’re older we get them on some tools to use that they wouldn’t get in different places,” Murphy said. The activities junior lifeguards participate in include surfing, health and wellness, fin painting and environmental awareness. The first session of students graduates July 20 and the second session graduates Aug. 20. “It gives them skills in order to perform in the ocean,” Murphy said, “and hopefully prepares them for careers in lifeguarding, firefighting or any other public service, if not just having great skills for life.” New elements in this year’s slate included a Navy SEAL day on July 6. Junior lifeguards had their minds and bodies exercised equally. “There is a mental toughness lecture and then they go through a push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, swim and run course with the SEALS,” Murphy said. Murphy said he would like to see the Junior Lifeguard program expand its curriculum in the near future to include an Explorer Scout program that involves cliff rescues and operating boats. The cost-recoverable program leans on help from organizations such as the nonprofit San Diego Junior Lifeguard Foundation to keep growing. “They helped us get into the stand-up paddle arena,” Murphy said. “We needed funding to buy the boards and they came up and bought us 22 stand-up paddleboards.” For more information, visit www.-sandiego.gov/lifeguards/junior/index.shtml. To contribute to the program, visit www.sdjgfoundation.org.