Westport Resident Featured Speaker at Swim Across America Swim June 23

On June 23, 2018, Westport resident and cancer survivor Kate Pollock will be the featured speaker at the 12th annual Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford Swim. Kate and her identical twin sister Eliza were both diagnosed with breast cancer within a few months of each other - before the age of 40. Kate is doing great today and says she and her sister are not just survivors, but “thrivers.” Kate and Eliza have been practicing their swimming to get ready for the open water swim in Long Island Sound. 

 

Kate will speak before 300 swimmers and 100 volunteers on Saturday morning - inspiring them before they dive into the water of Long Island Sound and remind them about "why they are swimming" and why finding better treatment and cures for cancer is the reason they are all "making waves in the fight against cancer."

"I am a cancer survivor and thriver," said Kate. "In 2015 and 2016, I underwent 4 biopsies, 1 lumpectomy and 33 rounds of radiation. After initial treatment, I started a drug which I will take for the next 5-10 years to help prevent metastasis. I also practice integrative cancer care and balance nutrition, exercise and mindfulness to prevent recurrence. I am swimming in honor of fellow survivors - my sister Liza Pollock, mom Martha Brandt-Pollock, friends Susan Carver, Nicole Magaldi, Alexis El Sayed, Meredith Fein Lichtenberg, Robin Sulkes, and Maria Torres. I am swimming in memory of my friends’ mothers: Darlene Catherine Nock, Bernadette Queyroi-Haider, Diane Rose Doyle and Virginia Lyman. I am swimming to hold up those who are in the throes of cancer now, particularly my beloved yoga teacher Shiva Rea.  Come hell or high water, I am swimming for myself!"

Swim Across America donates the funds raised at Saturday's swim to its beneficiary the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT), which is the nation's only non-profit dedicated to funding cancer gene therapy research. ACGT happens to be headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut and is the site for the Swim in Long Island Sound. 

"Funding organizations like ACGT is a game changer for cancer treatment," said Kate. "At the forefront of cell and gene therapy is immunotherapy, which aims to awaken the immune system to the threat of cancer and deactivate the inhibitors that block the invasion of killer T-cells. The long-term goal is to develop treatments that attack only cancer cells, eliminating adverse effects on the body. ACGT is dedicated to this type of research."

In the past 12 years, the Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford event has raised more than $3.4 million for crucial support of the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT). One hundred percent of all Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford funds donated to ACGT go directly to support cancer cell and gene therapy research. The Swim has supported nine different scientists over the past 11 years. This year’s Swim will raise funds to support four ACGT scientists: Crystal Mackall, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, who is working on immunotherapy treatments for osteosarcoma; Samuel Katz, MD, PhD, at Yale University who is working on novel new immunotherapy treatments for blood cancers; Greg Delgoffe, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who is working on immune-based therapy and vaccines for melanoma; and Nori Kasahara, MD, PhD, of the University of Miami who is working on virotherapy for brain cancer.

While Swim Across America is a national organization and offers 18 open water swims from Boston Harbor to under the Golden Gate Bridge, its roots are firmly anchored in Connecticut and along the shores of Long Island Sound. Darien, Connecticut, resident Matt Vossler and his lifelong friend and college roommate Jeff Keith founded Swim Across America in 1987.

Today, Swim Across America has raised more than $75 million in the fight against cancer. More than 120 Olympians support Swim Across America, including Michael Phelps, Craig Beardsley, Donna De Varona (a honorary Greenwich-Stamford co-chair), Rowdy Gaines, Janel Jorgensen McArdle (who grew up in Ridgefield, Connecticut), Bobby Hackett, Ryan Lochte, Glenn Mills, Christina Teuscher and many more.

Co-chairs of the annual Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford swim are Michele Graham of Old Greenwich, whose 21 year-old daughter Nicole is currently undergoing treatment for relapsed leukemia, of which she was diagnosed when she was 16; and Lorrie Lorenz of Riverside, Connecticut, whose daughter Brooke has been close to seven years cancer-free from lymphoma. Both Nicole and Brooke graduated from Greenwich High School.

Honorary co-chairs of the Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford event are Olympic Gold medalist Donna de Varona and her husband John Pinto, John and Cindy Sites, Mary Henry and Howard Rubin, Arlene and Reuben Mark, and Richards of Greenwich.

For those interested in participating in Saturday's Swim, visit http://www.swimacrossamerica.org/greenwich. It's never too late to donate, swim or volunteer. Pool swims and virtual swims are also available.