SwimFest Dusk to Dawn Swim

Aim

We're two friends with a combined age of 117 taking on a dusk-to-dawn swim to Gift A Swim to local children. Wish us luck!

The (slightly) Terrible Swimming Night

We're Annette and Sarah – two women careening towards 60, who love swimming and are, let's be honest, nowhere near athletic. We've been friends for 40 years, which is roughly how long it'll feel like we've been in the water by Sunday morning. Sarah has christened this event "The Terrible Swimming Night," and she's not entirely wrong.

On Saturday 27 June we're taking on SwimFest at Jubilee Park – a dusk-to-dawn challenge swim that runs from 7pm through to 7am on Sunday morning. As a pair. In our fifties. What could possibly go wrong?

Here's my motivation for doing something so daft. My mum taught me to swim when I was about 6, and some of my favourite memories are of swimming as a kid and on into my early twenties. Then, like a lot of us, life got in the way and I simply… stopped. For years. It wasn't until I started working at Jubilee Park – I'm the Fundraising & Events Lead – that I realised just how much I'd missed it. Now I'm completely smitten all over again, and I want every child to have that same chance to love their swimming pool.

Gift A Swim is Jubilee Park's project to help those children who might miss out on the chance to get into the pool and just have fun. And there's a brilliant side effect for getting kids into swimming pools: you can't doomscroll, game or stare at a phone while you're splashing about in the water. It's just you, the pool and that brilliant endorphin buzz.

Please sponsor our Terrible Swimming Night. Every pound helps gift a swim to a local child – £7.50 covers one swim, £15 covers two, and £30 gives a family of four a day to remember. We'll do the splashy, exhausting, ridiculous bit through the night. All you have to do is donate and cheer us on.

Wish us luck because we're so going to need it!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made