just a little note to let you know what I am up to this week:
Tonight kicks off the 32nd annual H.W. Coulson Swim-A-Thon at the Boys' & Girls' Club of London, and I am really looking forward to the big swim. This is a week long event to raise money for the children and youth who come to the Club for social and recreational programs. This year I am going to keep track of the total amount of km that the teams swim and see if we can swim across Lake Erie and back, maybe Lake Ontario as well. I have a personal goal of swimming 5km. For many years, a man named Jakob, one of the seniors who comes to the Club to swim, has raised money for this event by swimming 5km. He is my inspiration for swimming 5km, and so far I have been able to raise $1, 500 for the cause. Our overall goal is to raise $100,000. All of the proceeds of the Swim-A-Thon go to the kids programs - this year, for swimming programs to help teach children to survive in the water.
That's our theme - Swim To Survive! For the past 3 years we have run a program in our pools for the children to learn how to survive a fall into deep water and other water skills. $40 = 1 child taking swim lessons. To date 2000 children have gone through the program. We need to keep the Swim To Survive program going. It's vital! Every year people die from water related accidents. The statistics are staggering: last year 410 in Canada died and 132 of them were from Ontario. These accidents were preventable. That is why I am swimming and 37 other teams from the community are joining me.
I will keep you posted - after tonight, we will see how far we have made it across the lake. Maybe we will get across the entire Great Lakes!
la
