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Swimming to save children’s lives

Proceeds will go toward free swim lessons for kids who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford them

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In his 14 years as a city lifeguard, Corey McClelland rescued more than a thousand people. This year alone, the San Diego Junior Lifeguard Foundation president and CEO hopes his organization will help save hundreds more.

Preventing childhood drowning was the goal of this weekend’s second-annual Swim 24Challenge fundraiser held at UC San Diego’s Canyonview Aquatics Center. The event brought in $85,928 for the Junior Lifeguard’s Waterproofing San Diego program.

For children under 5, drowning is a leading cause of accidental death, with rates surpassing those of traffic accident fatalities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among children 14 years and younger, it’s the second-highest leading cause of death. Between 2005 and 2009, the fatal unintentional drowning rate for African-Americans was significantly higher than that of whites across all ages.

“Drowning itself in a lot of cases isn’t an accident because if the child knew how to swim they could save themselves,” McClelland said. “In San Diego alone, between 2009 and 2014, 53 people drowned and over 500 people went to the hospital for some type of submersion issue.”

Top Donations, by team

  1. Qualcomm All Stars, $16,516
  2. Qualcomm All Stars 2, $15,367
  3. Anything Goes for Drowning Prevention, $11,640

Formal swimming lessons have been shown to reduce the risk of drowning, according to the CDC.

That’s why Waterproofing San Diego is so important. It teaches young students and the military about aquatics safety and introduces new pool swimmers to an ocean environment through a “Bridge to the Beach” program that teaches them how to spot rip currents. Most important, it teaches kids whose families may not otherwise be able to afford those lessons how to swim. This is done in their neighborhood community pools and is completely free.

View the photo gallery: Swim 24 Challenge 2015

The 24-hour swim relay is organized by Enduragive, a nonprofit group that targets the altruistic spirit of endurance athletes by providing them with unique opportunities to be charitable.

Swimmers organized themselves into teams of 12 people who were tasked with raising at least $100 each, the approximate cost to give a child swimming lessons.

Most Laps, by team

  1. Also the Gators, 2,247
  2. Gators, 2,221
  3. Bay City Swimmers, 2,134

The more physically exhausting duty, however, began Saturday at noon when each group began a daylong journey to swim or float nonstop, since there is an “anything goes,” noncompetitive division, too. They camped out on a nearby lawn and enjoyed both live music and tunes spun by a deejay. Clayton Dean of the Sempra Circa team swam the most laps -- 338.

La Jolla Country Day School senior Sebastian Soltero is the co-captain of his school’s water polo team, which collectively came together to support the effort by swimming a total of 1,975 laps.

“Helping kids not drown is a big issue for me because I’ve been raised in the ocean my entire life,” he said. “I want to help people not feel like they have to be so scared of it.”

sandy.coronilla@sduniontribune.com

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