seven water-related deaths <\/a>occurred at New York City beaches, marking the highest death toll in years.<\/p>\n\u201cI love the community swimming has brought me,\u201d said Wright. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI came across a bunch of statistics about the barriers people of color face in gaining access to pools and swim lessons,\u201d the freestyler recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs someone who loves swimming so much, I was shocked by that and I wanted to do something about it and help as many people learn to swim as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s fundraiser marks a major growth from its previous two iterations, the first of which raised just $5,000.<\/p>\n
The 2026 Turning the Tide swim-a-thon is large enough to take place for the very first time in Asphalt Green\u2019s Olympic-sized pool \u2014 where Wright spends upwards of 30 hours per week practicing and working as a lifeguard.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a galvanizer of people,\u201d said head coach Wright with her coach David Rodriguez. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n
It also coincides with the recreational center\u2019s Big Swim event, which is the city\u2019s largest free swim meet for kids ages 6 through 13.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Wright successfully wrangled multiple big-name sponsors, including swim giant TYR, which is providing swim caps, T-shirts and more to participants.<\/p>\n
She was even able to wrangle sponsorship from Nightingale-Bamford, where tuition costs $71,000 and administrators are extremely choosy about supporting fundraisers, Wright\u2019s mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a galvanizer of people. Her desire is not necessarily to put the spotlight on herself, but to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal,\u201d said David Rodriguez, Wright\u2019s head coach and the Senior Director of Aquatics of Asphalt Green.<\/p>\n
Wright hopes to raise at least $100,000 this year, a major jump from the $5,000 she raised in her first year. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n
Beyond equipping fellow Big Apple children with life-saving skills, Wright hopes to share her love of the water and the sport that she says has enriched her own life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s both an individual and team sport at the same time. You have to compete with yourself to be the best you can be, but at the same time, you\u2019re coming together to make your team the best team. Kind of like how each person at the swim-a-thon is doing their own amount of laps to come together to create a huge donation to help kids learn how to swim,\u201d said Wright.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bringing the community together and I love the community swimming has brought me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This teen is making waves. An Upper East Side swimmer with dreams of sharing her love of water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11648,3088,57,9,24,55,197,54,56,11472,466,58],"class_list":["post-208674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-drownings","tag-fundraising","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-swimming","tag-upper-east-side","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}