High school swim team raises funds for teammate with cancer

"She's part of our family too, she needed help and we decided to jump on that train and go for it."

FARGO, N.D. — A local high school swim team is showing their support after a teammate’s diagnosis with a rare form of cancer.

“This is our tenth annual swimathon. Every year we take a Saturday practice we raise money for a local charity that the captains pick. We try to make sure that whatever we’re donating to stays locally within the Fargo-Moorhead community and then they just swim a whole lot of yards,” Davies Boys Swim and Dive Head Coach, Jenn Johnson said.

This year part of that money raised will go towards one of the members in the Davies High School’s swim team.

“This year we decided to do one of the girl swimmers. She was diagnosed in the middle of swim season with T-cell Leukemia, so we decided that we wanted to help cover the cost for her family,” Davies Boys Swim and Dive Senior Captain, Blake Schluchter said.

“It obviously is very hard for her and her family and we want to lift off some of the stress that’s going on with her to help out with some of the medical bills so we figured that if we raised money and gave it to her it would be a good way to help her and her family out,” Davies Boys Swim and Dive Junior Captain, Tavian Nelson said.

Trying to collect as many funds, the team is putting in the hard work over the weekend.

“Some of the boys get donations based on the number of yards that they swim, some of the athletes like the divers will get donations based on the difficulty level of their dives or they’ll collect straight donations,” said Johnson.

Even out of the water, Schluchter says they are always looking for people in the community to help.

“We either go up to people that we know, we go to businesses, we ask our teachers, we just go ask anybody to help donate just a little bit of money that will help,” said Schluchter.

So far the team has seen promising contributions.

“We have raised over $10,000 this year and we’re hoping to do a little bit more just to help cover a lot of their costs,” Schluchter said.

“We give 60 percent of the profits that we get from the swimathon to her family and the 40 percent stays with the team,” said Nelson.

Overall, the Davies Swim team is glad to show their support.

“She’s part of our family too, she needed help and we decided to jump on that train and go for it,” said Schluchter.

Donations will be collected through the end of the month.

To donate to the Davies High school swimathon contact  Jennifer Johnson via email at johnsoj9@fargo.k12.nd.us or call (218) 791-2895.