Young Swimmers Raise $10,000 for Cancer Research and Support

It was HOT, HOT, HOT, somewhere near the 90-plus-to-100-degrees with a burning sunshine overhead.

But that didn’t deter the highly dedicated adult-and-young-children swimmers with different family backgrounds, vocations and swimming capabilities from energetically swimming to help fight cancer, and raise money for cancer research, prevention and treatment.

The Swim Across America fund-raising event, “Making Waves to Fight Cancer” took place at Scarsdale Golf Club (SGC) on Thursday afternoon, July 24th. Participants swam one mile, a half mile or formed relay teams for longer distances that consisted of family and friends.

Every swimmer who participated received a T-shirt and a towel, a unique participation medal, and other promotional items. Individual donations started at $500 and increased upward from there.

While there were no specific prizes for the longest swims of the day, except a big thanks for their swims and donations, time and a job well done, adult swimmers Sue Miles and Peter Mehlich did indeed register three-and-two miles respectively for their swims. With those outstanding swims, it was noted that they were seemingly never out of the pool for the whole event.

Swimmers All-In to Fight Cancer
It was obvious from watching the event that everybody involved was all in to fight cancer. Overall, it also was indeed a star-studded swimming fund-raiser for the benefit of the Long Island Sound chapter of Swim Across America.

Those included in the very successful fund-raiser were a bunch of adult swimmers, such as Tania Weiss, executive director of Cancer Support Team (CST); Bonnie Gould, former board chair of CST, SGC member and a long-time Scarsdale resident; and CST Advisory Board Member Sabrina Fiddelman. Many other CST officials and supporters were also on hand to work the event.

Young Swimmers Stole the Show
If you were there on site for the event, you know first-hand that it was the amazing kids, not the most caring adults, who stole the show, and literally in most dynamic kid-like fashion, with their smashing smiles and over-the-top energy, led the swimming parade for fighting cancer.

They were supported by grandparents and parents who were there to cheer them on in very much a family affair. Penny Bowman of Scarsdale, one of those grandparents and a SGC member, even swam with her granddaughter, Brooklyn Bowman, 12, and her friend, Elizabeth Abramov, 10, also from Scarsdale. Grandpa Mattias Bowman was on the sidelines the whole time to cheer all three on.

The LaSalle family of Scarsdale also made themselves known at the event as daughter Elenora LaSalle, 13, swam 216 laps and son Raphael LaSalle, 11, did 130 laps. Emera LaSalle, mother, chauffer for the day, Upper School English Teacher at Friends Academy in New York City and an outstanding soprano singer with Scarsdale’s New Choral Society, also swam in the event.

As usual, Gould headed the CST committee that provided a watchful and careful supervisory eye for the event, and coordinated exceptionally well with Laeh Yang-DiPietro, new SGC aquatics director and photographer for the event, to ensure everything went according to plan, as well as, above all, safely. Lifeguards aplenty were on hand to make sure.

No questions were needed to be asked of the spectators/donors in attendance about who were the rising stars of the event. It was obvious from the very beginning that they knew full-well who brought out the smiles for the day. Answer: It was those wonderful kids.

Ranging in ages from 5-to-13, there they were swimming happily and smoothly in a variety of swim positions, such as freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke, while actively helping fight cancer, more often than not, for a personal family reason. Several youngsters in attendance said they were swimming for an important and close relative.

The donations definitely were coming in methodically last Thursday afternoon from the well-organized 3-to-5-pm swim and the benefit for the previously mentioned Swim Across America (SAA), a national organization that has acknowledged local roots with plenty of supporters in Scarsdale, Eastchester, Larchmont and other Westchester towns and villages. SAA for years has religiously spread its funding to a number of worthwhile and local cancer-related organizations.

For example, the Cancer Support Team of Purchase, NY, with its numerous cancer patient services and a cadre of fully trained nurses, is one of those most deserving non-profits.

Swim Event Reached its Goal
Prior to the event, $3,017 had already been raised. After the two-hour swim and donations collected during, before and after, the final tally, according to CST’s Weiss, was $10,000, a record for the three-year event at SGC. More is expected from other donors who were expected to mail-in their donations to SAA, P.O. Box 217, Larchmont, NY 10538.

Proceeds from all the local Westchester swims support immunotherapy research at the Swim Across America research laboratories of Dr. Luis Diaz and the MSK Kids Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; immunotherapy research and clinical trials at the Swim Across America Laboratory at Weill Cornell Cancer Center; pediatric oncology research at Morgan Columbia University Medical Center, and the previously mentioned patient services from the Cancer Support Team.

Congratulations to one and all for a most worthwhile and well-organized local fund-raising swim event for a very good cause. Some of the attendees and supervisors and those good-looking kids from the event are still smiling about the success of this most important local charitable event.