March 20, 2009
by Jackie Rider
When varsity athletes shoot hoops with kindergarteners is it: a) community service; b) leadership training; c) just plain fun; or d) all of the above?
The Horace Greeley High School boys swimming and diving team recently capped their championship season with an afternoon at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester in Mount Kisco playing games with young children from the area. Some team members helped with swim lessons or played sports with the children in the after school program. Others assisted older children with homework or arts and crafts.
“Community service shows leadership and independence. It shows [that] the Greeley boys varsity swim team has more than one ‘trick,’ swimming isn’t the only thing they can do,” said Danté Hudson, director of the Mount Kisco center. “We loved it and can’t wait to do it again!”
Swimming and diving team has strong tradition of community service
Past community service projects by the boys varsity swim team have included recording books on tape for patients at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, spending an evening with children at Neighbors Link in Mount Kisco, raising more than $4,000 through a swim-a-thon for Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry and collecting and distributing toiletries to children at Stony Lodge Hospital in Ossining.
“We learn from our service that we have the ability to work together as a team, not just swimming, but also helping others in a meaningful way,” said Dave Sorensen, a Greeley senior and team co-captain with Braden Clarke and Josh Saccurato. “We show how we swim at our meets, but through our community service we show that we also care about the community.”
Coach Meg Kaplan has made service projects an essential part of the swim team program for years. “I want the boys to have the experience of helping others who do not have the same opportunities they have. Giving of themselves to strangers is a wonderful self-assessment,” she said.
Like prior years’ projects, this year’s event was “hands on,” Kaplan added. Swimmers volunteered in areas where they felt confident, whether in academics or athletics, arts and crafts or recreation. “When the interest matches the volunteer, typically there is success,” said Kaplan who is also program supervisor at the Elmsford Day Habilitation Program.
Co-captain Sorensen explained,, “This year we didn’t want to ask people for money. We figured we could do something the Boys & Girls Club needed, working with kids in their program.”
Coach Kaplan said she is proudest of how the team gives100 percent. She also noted how the team has grown since she began coaching them nine years ago. She attributes much of the success to her assistant coach Suzanne Guziec. Together, “we pull the best from each teenager we work with,” Kaplan explained.
“I hope they [have] learn[ed] how they can make a difference in a kid’s day. That kid can go home and tell mom and dad how much fun they had at the Boys & Girls Club with the Greeley boys swim team,” said Hudson.
Jackie Rider is a free-lance writer who lives in Chappaqua with her husband and two sons, one of whom is a member of the Greeley boys varsity swimming and diving team.
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