Water has always been my happy place, a place that elicits freedom, courage, and grace. I learned to swim at age five, and as grade schoolers, my sisters and I joined a swim team. From that foundation, I developed a love for the sport along with a profound respect for the water.



As a young adult, this love of the sport segued into a passion for teaching—I became a certified water safety instructor and taught swimming lessons to children and adults during the summer throughout my college years. I later taught my six children to swim, and I personally witnessed my three-year-old son fall into the water fully clothed, turn around, and swim back to the wall before I could jump in to rescue him. This was one of the most remarkable moments in my life and underscored how swim instruction can save a life.



After reading an article about children drowning in the ocean off the west coast of Africa, I discovered Swim Tayka, an organization dedicated to saving lives by providing free swimming lessons, drowning prevention education, and promoting clean water stewardship to children in underserved communities around the world. My first encounter with this non-profit organization took me to Peru in January 2025. It was a delight to teach young children from the Huanchaco area the joys of swimming as well as water safety. I then traveled to Bali, Indonesia, in September 2025 to provide lessons to children in that region and saw firsthand how the implementation of a swimming program can change and save lives.



Now, I have committed to a Catalina Channel Relay Swim, joining a six-person team to raise awareness and financial support for Swim Tayka. The channel swim is scheduled for July 21, 2026 and is a 20.2 mile journey from Catalina Island to the California mainland. This is one of the “Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming” locations, alongside the English Channel and 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island. Our team will begin crossing in the middle of the night, facing cold water temperatures and complete darkness, contending with currents, and perhaps encountering some marine life.



I am swimming to support the mission to teach children to swim around the world. Drowning is a silent epidemic that claims an estimated 360,000 lives every year, many of them children, with nearly 40 drowning deaths every hour of every day. This challenge is deeply personal for me, as the faces of these children are real. I have met them in Peru and Bali and their triumphant smiles and squeals of joy after our two weeks of lessons and water safety instruction led to real progress and the life skill of swimming proficiency.



Thank you for being part of my adventure and for contributing to save the life of even just one child.

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