Swimmers Take to the Pool to Fight Cancer One Lap at a Time
It won’t be your typical early morning swim for dozens of hardy souls this Sunday who will converge at the Chappaqua Swim & Tennis Club shortly after daybreak.
This weekend is the club’s annual participation in Swim Across America, a nationwide effort to raise money for cancer research and patient support. Organizers for Chappaqua’s swim, the sixth year the club is participating, hope to at least match last year’s 90 swimmers and $85,000 raised. That total was the second highest raised in one venue in the United States in 2016.
“To me, it’s a great cause, a great event,” said Tony Sibio, Swim Across America’s Long Island Sound (SAA-LIS) Chapter president, which is celebrating 25 years since the initial swim in the Sound in 1992. “It’s different than a black-tie event or a golf outing.”
Swimmers will collect donations beforehand and take to the pool to complete laps totaling either a half-mile or a full mile. One does not need to be a champion competitor to participate, said Carrie Dillon, a committee member for Swim Across America’s Long Island Sound Chapter. A wide range of ages have signed up for the event from young children to seniors.
“People takes breaks, you can use a board. This is not a very competitive event,” Dillon said.
Many participants who turn out for the Swim Across America events – this is one of seven pool swims this month plus the open water swim in Long Island Sound on July 29 – have been impacted by cancer or know someone who has.
That’s how Chappaqua Swim & Tennis coach Dan Levy got involved eight years ago after his sister was diagnosed. He and Dillon and some members from the club’s swim team participated in Orienta Beach Club’s swim in Mamaroneck. Six years ago, they believed there was enough interest in Chappaqua to host their own swim.
It proved to be the right choice, and now other area clubs and teams are joining Chappaqua Swim & Tennis at its site to participate, representing much of northern Westchester, Levy said. There are teams from Lewisboro, Katonah, Bedford Village and other locales joining in on Sunday, he said.
“I feel like this will be, at least I’m hoping, it will be the first year we’re getting the community around us, and I just don’t mean the Chappaqua community but the Westchester community, the other swim teams in the area to bring a contingent of their own, and this is sort of what we hoped would happen eventually,” Levy said.
Not that extra motivation is needed, but joining the swimmers on Sunday will be former Olympian Cristina Teuscher, a New Rochelle High School graduate who was a member of the U.S. women’s relay team that captured a gold medal at the 1996 Games in Atlanta before returning to take home a bronze medal in the 200-meter individual medley in 2000 in Sydney.
All the money raised from the swims will support immunotherapy research at the Swim Across America Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, pediatric oncology research at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian and patient services with the Westchester-based Cancer Support Team, Sibio said.
He said the work and the swims will go on until the day that nobody dies from cancer.
“My feeling is until we have a 100 percent cure rate, we’re not done,” Sibio said.
Membership at the club is not needed to participate. Those interested in signing up or for more information, can visit www.swimacrossamerica.org/long_island. Donations can be sent to SAA-Long Island Sound, P.O. Box 217, Larchmont, N.Y. 10538.
This Sunday’s event will run from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. Other remaining swims, in addition to the July 29 event in Long Island Sound from 6 a.m. to noon, will take place at Lakeside Field Club in North Salem this Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m. with a barbecue to follow and at the Lake Isle Country Club in Eastchester on Saturday, Aug. 5 from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
