Swimming for the kids at PSH
- Jan 27, 2015
- 2 min read
MIDDLETOWN, PA. — Penn State Alumnae Holly Maitland-McKenna put her 35 years of swimming and instructor experience to use at SWIM for A CURE, as she swam for 15 hours to help raise money for THON, Penn State’s biggest student-run philanthropy, on Jan. 27.
The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon is a yearlong fundraising and awareness campaign for the fight against pediatric cancer. This effort engages more than 15,000 students across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in hopes of finding a cure. THON raised a record breaking $13.34 million last year and was able to donate 96 percent of funds raised directly to Four Diamonds. Since 1977, THON has raised more than $114 million benefiting Four Diamonds at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.
Maitland-McKenna swam from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to raise money for Penn State Harrisburg to contribute to Thon. She has been participating in doing SWIM for A CURE for the past three years. While her first year she was able to swim 12.5 miles and raise $1,768 by herself, last year she invited other swimmers to join her. She was able to swim more than 15 miles and nearly doubled the amount raise, bringing the total to $3,400.
Even though the long swim tires Maitland-McKenna, she says the cause is worth the exhaustion.
“I swim probably three to six miles a week, if I am lucky,” Maitland-McKenna said. “I have a family and work here at the pool six days a week, so basically I just get in and do it. No matter how tired I am, how sore I am, how in pain I am, it does not measure the pain these kids with cancer go through.”
SWIM for A CURE is not Maitland-McKenna’s only experience with a swimming fundraiser. In October 2013, she had the pleasure to swim with her hero, Diana Nyad, in New York City to raise money for Hurricane Sandy victims. She was able to raise $1,500 for a 15-minute time slot.
She chose to have people donate directly to www.THON.org this year, but there is no way to tell just how much was donated to the website. However, Maitland-McKenna was able to raise $2,412 swimming more than 12 miles.
“When I was a student at Penn State, THON was basically for the fraternities and sororities,” Maitland-McKenna said. “When I started working here and saw how involved our students are for the cause, I felt that as an Alumnae, I needed to give back. So I created SWIM for A CURE. It’s all FTK. For the Kids!”
Maitland-McKenna’s ultimate goal for this event is to get every student, faculty, staff and local community members involved in the day to swim, do fundraising, or cheer on the swimmers.
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