The Bay Frog Open one-mile swim brought athletes, veterans, and even a Nashville songwriter to Presque Isle Bay Sunday morning \u2014 all supporting programs for local veterans and first responders.<\/p>\n
If you were out at Presque early Sunday morning, you were probably thinking why are there hundreds of swimmers all swimming in the same direction. Well that’s because hundreds of swimmers took part in the fourth annual Bay Frog Open 1 mile swim, a benefit to support the Uncommon Grit Seal Foundation.<\/p>\n
All started at the third parking lot at Presque and their finish line was the Erie Yacht Club.<\/p>\n
Before the race began, the color guard and Erie native Ella Blanc performed the national anthem to kick off the event.<\/p>\n
Each swimmer raised funds with proceeds supporting local veteran and first responder initiatives.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s a great event to have local in our Erie area. You see a lot of sponsorships to go outside the area and great to have something that’s helping locally here in Erie so you know really cool to be a part of it,” Ashlyn Fratto, a swimmer, shared.<\/p>\n
The mission behind the swim goes far beyond competition.<\/p>\n
“It’s important to take care of those who’ve taken care of us. It’s really that simple on that basic and I said the community does a fantastic job,” Jason Fowler, the director of the Uncommon Grit Seal Foundation.<\/p>\n
This year’s event also featured Nashville songwriter Kelli Johnson, who visited Erie to perform a piece created through Operation Song \u2014 a program where veterans submit their personal stories and artists turn those stories into music to help raise awareness.<\/p>\n
“My dad and my brother were veterans and it just has always been a cause close to my heart and getting to work with Operation Song and Uncommon Grit. We get to pair veterans with professional songwriters and hear their stories,” Kelli Johnson shared.<\/p>\n
“Right here along Presque Isle Bay is where swimmers wrapped up their mile-long trek. And while the finish line marked the end of the race, organizers told me the impact of today’s event will continue long after Sunday’s event. Stephanie Logue, Erie News Now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bay Frog Open one-mile swim brought athletes, veterans, and even a Nashville songwriter to Presque Isle Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[97495,136,138,137,13068,29204,97496,2349],"class_list":["post-224487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-bay-frog-open","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-first-responders","tag-presque-isle-bay","tag-uncommon-grit-seal-foundation","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}