Chatfield High School Swim and Dive

I'm raising money to benefit Sydney's alma mater, Chatfield Senior High Swim and Dive Team, and any donation will help make an impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to me.

As most of you know, Sydney’s favorite place was at the pool. She began competitive swimming at age 7 and swam up until leaving for college, be it club, summer team or high school. She also worked for 3 years teaching kids/adults how to swim. Her swimming career culminated with a senior year swimming for and managing the Chatfield Chargers Swim/Dive team. Sydney earned many “sportsmanship” and “team spirit” awards from her teams and her summer swim team has designated a “Sydney Meegan Legacy Award” which is given to someone demonstrating outstanding team spirit.

During Sydney’s swim career, she always wanted a swim parka—the big puffy coats that swimmers wear to keep warm between events. We never bought her one of her own, but the first high school team she swam for had loaners. When she got that parka, she refused to take it off. She wore it 24/7 (yes, she slept in it) because she was so excited to have it.

The Chatfield Chargers Swim/Dive team has decided to outfit its teams with loaner parkas. I would like to be able to make a generous donation to the team in Sydney’s honor, to help offset their costs, so the swimmers and divers can spend more time in the pool and studying and less time fundraising. The Chatfield parkas will have the regular Chatfield Charger logo on the front, and on the sleeve will be the SEM lightning bolt modified logo. The sleeve will also feature the words “We see you” and #containscourage. As many know, Sydney had a severe allergy to milk. #Containscourage is a multi-year fundraising effort by the organization FARE. FARE stands for Food Allergy Research and Education, a non-profit focused on education, support, and advocacy for those living with food allergies (www.foodallergy.org).

Sydney lived her life with more courage than anyone I know. She never let her allergy define her. She was a bright but fleeting light on this earth. Since her passing, she has come to be symbolized by the lightning bolt. Many of her friends and family now sport lightning bolt tattoos. In a paper written in elementary school, Sydney said about herself, “I swim like lightning”. Her beloved summer swim team was the Lightning. One of her last texts to me included a picture of her sorority hanging a lightning-bolt shaped name tag on her. She said, “Mom, I’m lightning for life!”. Now let’s get some lightning into those Chatfield Charger swimmers and divers with warm, professional looking parkas! Thank you for any amount you can help with.