Campus Swim Seniors Take to the Pool for Make-a-Wish-Foundation
By Matt Browning
It started eight years ago with a group of seniors who wanted to leave a legacy at Campus High School and eight years later the impact is still going on strong.
Each year, the Campus swimming program organizes and runs Swim-to-a-Wish, which benefits the Kansas Make-a-Wish Foundation.
The event has raised several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the eight years and has spread from just Campus High School to six other schools in the Wichita and Salina-area.
“Swim-to-a-Wish has continued to grow each year,” Campus swimming coach Kelly Kennedy said. “When we started it, we set our goal at $1,200and we had no idea what we were doing. We had $1,600 collected before any of the boys ever got in the water. The event collected $5700 the first year. Honestly, we thought we would only do this one or two years and we just finished year eight.”
Swim-to-a-Wish has a personal impact on Kennedy.
When Kennedy’s daughter, Aubrey, was four years old, she was diagnosed with cancer. After her chemotherapy treatments were complete, Make-a-Wish sent the entire Kennedy family to Disney World.
Kennedy wanted to repay Make-a-Wish for bringing such joy to his family when they really needed it.
“That trip put the light back in our family when we really needed it,” Kennedy said. “I wanted to pay back Make-a-Wish, so we brought back this marathon swimming event that hadn’t been done since 1982. We named it the second year.”
The concept of Swim-to-a-Wish is simple: swim team members join together to swim a 100-mile marathon in relay format over the course of a weekend. Five swimmers swim 100 miles continuously from a Friday after school until midday Sunday.
USD 261 has not only embraced the event, but has been supportive in its growth and exposure.
“This event could not have grown to what it is today without the support from our superintendent, school board, administration, principals and the rest of the district,” Kennedy said. “Campus has raised the most money each year but I believe that is because we have the chance to get on television and radio stations to advertise the event.”
“It is amazing the support all the teams have received for participating. It brings me to tears to talk about how well this event has done and the communities that support it year after year.”
