Annaleise's Radical Crossing 2.0

I know, I know, it’s been way too long since I wrote!  I have been so busy…like BUSY!!!  I thought I’d give you a quick run down! I’ll mention school first, because quite honestly, it always seems to get mentioned last :)!  I have had a very good year again and I am very happy with that!  I want to thank all my teachers and the staff at Holy Trinity for helping so much and being caring and understanding through my crazy last 2 years!  I’m working hard because my exams start next Thursday!  With my trip to North Dakota, where I will be the guest swimmer and race starter for the Extreme North Dakota Water Endurance Test (End-WET) 36 mile Open Water race, I had to have my exams moved way up, and once again HT was sooo great to me!  Thank you all and yes everyone, I have had time to get in some studying…especially for History !

So what else? I’ve had some book signings in Toronto, thanks to the Thomas family for working on that!  Met some really neat people!  I also had one last night at the Simcoe Little Theatre were the production, Dixie Swim Club, is taking place!  Can you imagine they have a production about swimming this year !  I got to see me at 77 years old!!  Thanks for the invite SLT!!

I’ve also done some fundraising events at HalNor and at the National Karate tournament at HT in Simcoe!  I’ve had speaking engagements, and I really have to mention what an honour it was to speak at the Ontario Volunteer Service Awards in Vittoria!  Thank you Eva for inviting me and thank you to all the volunteers who help so many people!!!!!  I also really have to thank the Weston (Toronto) Lions for helping us out with the fuel for the swim!!

I also had the honour to get a tour of Variety Village a by Kate Haggis and to be able to volunteer with the kids on the high ropes for a couple of hours!!!  It was so amazing!!!

And of course there is training!!  I’m still getting my regular pool hours with the swim team, but I’ve been getting awesome training with Rob and Darcy kayaking and Josh and Lisa pacing!!  Special thanks to Pete Shira and the Long Point Region Conservation Area for allowing us to turn North Waterford Conservation Area into my training camp :)!  The lake is warming up now, but the time I’ve had in the “pond” has been invaluable!!

I also want to give a shout out to everyone who is working so hard as part of my crew, whether they are on water or on land or media/promotions!!!  You are all amazing and really get the “one drop, many ripples!” message!  Thanks too to Duane Rutter for putting your body on the line while I swim :)!  I can’t believe what everyone is doing!!  Finally, thanks to the 70 or so volunteers who will be helping out in Port Dover while I swim!  I can never thank everyone enough for what they are doing!!

So, I’m signing off for tonight and heading back to school work and studying!!  I can’t wait until my exams are over, because that means I will be off to North Dakota for that exciting 36 mile race!!  Have a great night and rest of the weekend!  If you are in the area of Paris, Ontario tomorrow morning, come by the Bethel Stone United Church on Bethel Road to see me speak at 11am :)!  I’d love to meet you 😉 !

My family and I are very sorry to the Simcoe Barrel Restaurant for them being missed in the sponsor list in my book! Imagine how horrified we were when we presented Nick and Tom with copies of my book and their name was somehow missed!!  Embarrassed is not even the word! I value my sponsors very deeply and are very disappointed by this development!  The Barrel continues to be a great sponsor and contributor to my quest to help Camp Trillium through this swim, and I thank them for their understanding!

So, I know it has been a while since I have posted a blog, but I really need to get one tonight!  First, I now have my G1 License!  The roadways may never be the same ! I’ve been wanting to get it since I turn 16 last month, but I’ve just been too busy, but today we finally just made time!  So, ya, that’s pretty cool!

Tonight I also added another Platinum sponsor in the Vittoria Firefighters Association!!  Not only did they give a big donation, but they are also planning to work with the St. William’s Firefighters and people of Turkey Point to have a kind of celebration breakfast sometime after my swim!!  How cool is that?  Now I’d just better make it across Lake Erie!

I’m so thankful to all my sponsors and partners and all the incredible things they are doing!  Sounds like everyone will have a great time in Port Dover while I am swimming across the  lake!  Duane Rutter, Norfolk County and Knetchels are making sure it will be exciting!

I have to thank the over 600 people who showed up at Camp Trillium and donated over $6400 yesterday during the Pancake Breakfast!  It was such a wonderful morning and I loved meeting all the incredible people that stopped in!!  Thanks especially to all the awesome people who volunteered their time!

There is just so much going on, with speaking engagements and fundraising and training, it’s just awesome!  I want to talk about it all, but I just don’t have the time!  One thing I will mention is that I will be at “Count Me In” tomorrow in Toronto!  If you don’t know what this is, you really need to check it out!  I had the honour of being a part of the day last year, and my friend, Shane Feldman, was kind enough to make my family VIP guests this year!  I am looking so forward to the day and seeing Shane again!

As you will see on my events page, I’m staying very busy!  I love speaking on behalf of Camp Trillium and promoting the cause of children with cancer, as well as their families!

I’d really love to write more, but tomorrow is a very early morning and I have to get some sleep!  I hope I get to see some of you tomorrow at Count Me In!!

“The Rock” has been such a part of my journey!  One of the things that I actually did want for myself was to get my name on “The Rock” at Niagara-on-the-Lake along with all the incredible marathon swimmers to swim across Lake Ontario, and more specifically with my hero, Marilyn Bell!  That early November day when my name was unveiled will forever be etched in my mind!  So, fast forward to a trip my dad and great grandpa and I made to Oakville on Friday, and now “The Rock” have a new meaning for me!  The Toronto Rock have come on as an enthusiastic sponsor/partner and I just love how excited they are, not just to help me, but to help the kids and their families at Camp Trillium!  It was one of the most exciting meetings I’ve had!  So how did it come about?  Well, almost famously now, my coach for the Lake Ontario crossing, Lisa Anderson, forgot the feeding stick at home on the way to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the start of my swim ! She was riding with one of my pacers, Chris Peters, and they stopped at Canadian Tire and looked for something that might work!  They picked a lacrosse stick and it worked awesome!  So, as far as I know, I may be the only marathon swimmer to have used a lacrosse stick as a “feeding stick” :)! It worked, so I wanted to do it again!  I thought, well, why not see if the Toronto Rock Lacrosse Team of the NLL would be interested in sponsoring my “feeding stick” !

Little did I know how excited they would be!  To shorten the story, they’ve made it possible so that I can go to the final Rock game of the season on Friday and take the opening face-off with Colin Doyle and they are going to help me spread the word about Camp Trillium!  There is so much more (including I got to shoot with a lacrosse stick on their practice rink in Oakville) but I’ll just end this part here!  If you have a chance and are in Toronto Friday, come down to the ACC and see me face-off!

So my training is going VERY well and I’m feeling awesome!  Biggest problem is I can’t wait to get into the lake to train!  My pacer, Josh Reid , is waiting too!!!  I was honoured to be asked by Kate Haggis of Variety Village to headline and participate in their open water swim again this year on Sept 6th!  Trust me when I tell you Open Water Nation, this is the most awesome open water event I have ever been in, if only based on the beauty of Buttermilk Falls  !

This Saturday I will be signing my book and fundraising for Camp Trillium at the South London Chapters!  Please come out and see me!  Thanks so much to all the nice things that have been said about my book and to those who have come out to my previous book signings!  It was an honour to work with someone as talented as Deborah Ellis!!

I’m going to finish for tonight because I have so much homework .  I can tell report cards are coming out soon !

I get so nervous before I speak or go on TV!!!  Last Friday morning while I was waiting to go on CHCH Morning Live the nerves were crazy!  Then you meet someone like Annette Hamm and get to speak to her on air, and she just made it so easy!  I was still nervous, but as soon as we started talking I could just tell her and the viewers about my book and the swim this summer!  I love going down to CHCH because they are just so nice in Hamilton!!  I also enjoyed my morning on CityTV’s Breakfast TV last month too!

So, I said I was going to talk about my sponsors in my next blog, and that’s what I’m going to do now!  Without my crew and sponsors I can’t even think of doing anything like swimming lakes!  The cost would be just too much!  Of I course have 2 incredible partners in Camp Trillium and Norfolk County, but there are so may other companies and groups that continue to help me and you can find them on my sponsor page!  The Port Dover Power and Sail Squadron, contacted me right away after I announced another swim and wanted to be part!  The help, information and boats that they as a group have supplied is amazing!  Kristen Jerry, our primary contact with the squadron is now the Assistant Manager of the entire swim because she just does everything!!  And she is amazing at it!!  The job that she and Shane Feldman, founder and producer of “Count Me In Canada” and one of Canada’s Top 20 People under 20 Years Old, have done with social media for the swim and book launch is simply incredible!  They know their stuff!  The squadron has supplied 3 very large boats for my swim, as well as a lot of crew members to “man” them!  Back from my Lake Ontario crossing is Captain Chuck McInally and Dr. Bruce Bowyer on the “Chuck Wagin”  Having these guys along again will be so reassuring as they have been through one “battle” with me already!  Bridge Yachts in Port Dover is once again supplying me with the 2 zodiacs I need!  They are soooo nice to me and Ed is such a sweetie !  Then there is Clear Blue Sorbents and Martinrea who continue to stand by me!  RE7 keeps me energized and hydrated all the time!  What a blessing it was that they found me 2 years ago!  Media partners like MyFM 98.9 in Norfolk and Sun Media with their Simcoe Reformer outlet are here to make sure that my message about Camp Trillium, helping others, and social change gets out!  Wonderful ongoing sponsorships, with 2nd Ave Printing in Simcoe and the work Jeff Kowalsky does for me, Millea Physio and Roddy’s ongoing support, and Simcoe Dental Clinic and the never ending help of Dr. Fard, are so humbling that sometimes it’s embarrassing how well they treat me!  Same with the Barrel Restaurant who are ALWAYS there to help in the community!  What an amazing group of people they are!  Cindy Chappe and Top Notch Signs and Promotional Products and her tireless ideas for fundraising!  My church family in Courtland, Ontario, Grace Family Bible Fellowship, with their continuous support and love and financial help, as well as the help of groups like the Port Dover Lions and Tillsonburg Seniors!  I saved this one though! Medical Transportation Services out of Mississauga are coming all the way down to the beach at Port Dover to transport me to Norfolk General Hospital after the swim on their own time, and I think that is amazing that they would offer and want to come down here to support what is happening!  There are more coming that are not up on the site yet either…mainly because we don’t know exactly where they will slot in!  For example, the Vittoria Firefighters are on board as a sponsor and we are planning a fundraiser with them…possible in Turkey Point!  There are many other too so stay tuned and see how companies and group want to help others!!  We’ve hardly begun!  If you are interested in sponsoring me and supporting Camp Trillium and kids with cancer and their families, you can either contact me under the “Contact Us” Tab, or there is a sponsorship package you can download on the “Sponsors” page!

I’m just going to leave you with this.  The entire goal of this swim is to get as many people involved in helping others!  Hence my motto “One Drop, Many Ripples!”  The ripple effect of helping others is unbelievable!  Alone I am quite insignificant, but with the help of family, crew, sponsors and YOU, we can make a real difference, not just for Camp trillium, but in a hurting world!  Please help me by becoming one of those “Ripples”!