Photo: Supplied.
Visit the Manly Pool on any Tuesday or Thursday morning and you’ll probably see a group of swimmers doing lap after lap, no matter what the temperature. Commendable, you think, to take such good care of themselves – but some of those swimmers are doing it not just for fitness, pleasure or self-care – they’re doing it for young people who are struggling with mental health problems and desperately need someone to stand by them in that battle.
Katie Hart is one of the local swimmers giving her hours in the pool this March to raise funds for ReachOut Australia. ReachOut, designed with and specifically for young people, is 100 per cent online, anonymous and confidential, and lets young people connect on their terms. The annual March fundraising is an initiative of Laps for Life, which supports young people dealing with mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety and depression.
“I’m one of a group of locals, ranging in age from the mid-50s to early 70s, who do swim fitness classes at the pool twice a week,” Katie says.
“This is my third year as a swim fundraiser, and I suggested we could get a team together; now we have 15 people signed up! The money’s raised by setting our personal goal of how many laps we’ll swim in the month and asking friends, and businesses to sponsor us for a certain amount.”
The group obviously take their task seriously; having set a target total of $2,500, they’re now topping the team leaderboard with more than $7,000 already raised.
“We want to raise as much as we can before the end of March,” says Katie. “This is a local community effort, and we’d love to see how much support we can get from the rest of the community.”
If you’d like to help young people while helping yourself to fitness, or donate to the Manly Swim Fit Legends (or any other group) you can do it through the Laps for Life website at https://www.lapsforlife.com.au.
