This year, the Saint Stephen’s swim team got a new coach, Sherri Hart, which has been a huge boost for the program. Coach Hart was an Olympic Trials swimmer and, little did anyone know, a huge participant in the cancer awareness world.

Last week, in late September, Coach Hart invited the Falcon swim team to go to Atlanta to take part in an open-water swim fundraiser for pediatric cancer, which Hart started five years ago. The purpose of the swim was to raise money and awareness for cancer, while having a little bit of fun.

Getting the chance to go to this event was ever so humbling, listening to survivors and fighters who still bring themselves to swim and raise money for research each year.

The trip, which was from September 22nd to the 23rd, was located at Lake Lanier, just outside of Atlanta.  In the end, the September Swim Across America Atlanta event raised $500,000 for the  Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In 2016, Swim Across America raised $310,000 for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, $450,000 for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and $220,000 for Dana-Faber Cancer Institute Mass General Hospital for children, to name just a few. In total, Swim Across America raised $4,500,000 for cancer research institutions in 2016.

At Swim Across America Atlanta, the program hosts offered a five-kilometer swim, a one-mile swim, and a half-mile swim. Saint Stephen’s swimmer Alex Webster swam the 5k and finished in 2nd place for the open age group (out of about 100 participants). Falcon swimmers Nicholas Mattheys, Graham Beckstein, and Nick Probosz swam the 1 mile. Nicholas won the 1 mile for the open age group and Graham and Nick came in 2nd and 3rd respectively in the 18 & under age group.  Each race had about 100 racers.

Five years ago, Swim Across America donated enough money to Merck, a medical institution, to get a clinical trial drug approved, which was tested on one of the swimmers, and in turn cured her cancer. Now that drug, Keytruda, is an FDA-approved drug in cancer treatment today.

On the campus level, the Saint Stephen’s swim team started a fundraiser by raising funds privately about a month before the meet and donated over $18,000 dollars. The highest donating student donated over $3,000.

Kathleen Kelly, junior, raised over $1,500.  Kelly said, “Being able to raise money for cancer research makes me feel good, especially because I know quite a few people who have suffered from cancer, like Mrs. Odell (former SSES lunchroom coordinator), and doing this can help make a difference.”

Many other students on the swim team feel the same way, like Graham Beckstein, who said “The race was really fun and being able to help out with donations and cancer research is just a good thing to do.”

All in all, not only the Falcons, but all the participants made an enormous difference in the lives of thousands of people. Many of those people have even started swimming and donating themselves, hoping to defeat cancer forever so others don’t have to suffer the same way that they did. Each individual Saint Stephen’s swimmer was swimming for their own respective people, but together, the team dedicated their swim to Mrs. Odell.