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To the Editor:
The best of Chappaqua was on display at Sunday morning's Swim Across America fundraising event at Chappaqua Swim & Tennis, the picture-perfect sunny weather reflecting the optimism of this broad community effort.
What started eight years ago as an off-site, four-person swim has grown to a home event involving more than 80 swimmers with ages ranging from 6 to nearly 60.
Each swimmer swam a half-mile or mile, and money pledged for the swim went to cancer research and treatment. The fundraising results of the Chappaqua swim have increased dramatically, with more than $60,000 in contributions so far this year.
This puts the Chappaqua Swim & Tennis swim in the number one spot for fundraising among all the pool swims in Westchester and Long Island. This is an outstanding accomplishment for an event that held its first home swim only four years ago, thanks to our community.
Olympic silver medalist Bobby Hackett of Katonah helped kickstart the Chappaqua swim, offering a swim clinic to participants. This year, many local businesses stood alongside us to fight cancer, contributing food and refreshments for the event, as well as wonderful prizes for raffle and high-end items for silent auction.
Crabtree's Kittle House Inn donated three wine-tasting dinners for two; Mt. Kisco Seafood donated a clambake dinner for ten; local jewelers Desires by Mikolay and Wilson Jewelers donated beautiful jewelry; the Rachel Ray television show donated two tickets to be in the studio audience. Beneficiaries of SAA-LIS funds include the Cancer Support Team - Purchase, NY; Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian, New York; Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - New York, supporting the Swim Across America Research Laboratory; and The DeMatteo Research Laboratory located at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.
--Isabella and Margaux Weiner
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