The Red Deer Catalina Swim Club is hosting a new and unique fundraiser this weekend.
For the first time ever they’ll put on a 24-hour swim at the Michener Aquatic Centre to raise money for the club.
Beginning this Friday at 5 p.m. members will split into four teams of 12-15 swimmers to compete in a series of games. During that time at least one swimmer from each team will remain in the water.
President of the club Jennifer Bahler said they’ll play water polo, swim relay races, and there will be a midnight swim among other activities planned.
“We’re just trying to make it fun and exciting for the kids and raise some money for our club in the meantime,” she said.
They’re hoping to raise $10,000 which will be used to help send some of the swimmers to national and international meets throughout the year. This season some of those meets were supposed to be in Edmonton but got moved to Toronto which significantly increases the costs for travel.
They also need the extra funds to send some of their athletes to Calgary and Edmonton in order to train in long-course pools. Catalina doesn’t have access to a long-course pool in Red Deer until the summer since it’s outdoors.
The festivities on Friday night will begin with a barbecue and it will wrap up on Saturday at 5 p.m.
“It’s the first time the City of Red Deer’s allowed a pool to be open for 24 hours,” Bahler said.
“We started looking into a unique way and we wondered how do we spice this up… We thought what if we do a really fun swim where somebody would be in the pool for 24 hours and there would be fun stuff going on? The kids actually get to do some team building as well as trying to raise money.”
Those who want to donate can do so at the event by cheque and a credit card or can send money through e-transfer to office@reddeercatalina.ca.
Earlier this year the Catalina Swim Club sent 18 swimmers to provincial championships in Edmonton in March. At the event Red Deer won their fifth straight medium team banner and placed fifth overall in the province ahead of some large teams.
“To be placed fifth for a club that has 70 competitive swimmers is amazing. The next team has 400 so for us to be competing with that high of calibre is really good and I think six of our swimmers are in the top 10 in their events in Canada,” she said.
“As a group we have some really high-level swimmers that we’re producing and some of these have come right from the grassroots up. COVID-19 didn’t deter us. We’re here, we’re strong, and we want to keep going.”
