Strength in Action
Lake A Thon Over the Years
The Lake a Thon as a social event, or as a competition, or as an opportunity to be a superhero, you choose.
We meet at the Clubhouse at 10am Labor Day Monday and start the race at 10:30. We walk, swim and boat in a “race” that takes some player 23 minutes and others, well, much longer. All ages compete in the way that makes the most sense for them. We have had a mermaid float for support, sneakers and bare feet and competition to beat last years’ time or just beat Matt. In the case of year 11, we competed under umbrellas and year 12, behind masks. Last year was a perfect day. We can compete through anything, except lightening, that stuff can be scary.
Typically, we have about 80 people attend. Every attendee participates in their own way, whether competing in the different legs, cheering on the “athletes”, or keeping everyone safe. You can choose your level of participation.
If you know me, I tend to tell stories that can get long and winding and full of strange tangents....so, to keep it brief, (really, come on, you know that isn’t an option for me) fourteen years ago, Jodie, Patricja and I started with the idea, some abstract vision, and some homemade t-shirts. The small profits of the sale of the shirts went to the Bloomingdale Food Bank. The donations to the Food Bank went on for a couple of years, and then my sister got sick, so we switched focus and donated to the Ronald McDonald House in NYC. Then my sister died, and now we donate the profits from the sale of shirts to the Peggy O'Leary Seigler Scholarship. (You may have seen an email in the Spring with information on the 2022 recipient) The concept of the Lake A Thon has grown to include participants from many countries and states. The idea of being epic, while part of the fabric at Glen Wild Lake, translates to others who are ready to beat back cancer with education.
The primary purpose of the Lake A Thon is to enjoy the Lake and the community. That is the constant. You do not need to buy a t-shirt to participate. However, when you do, you support a medical student. Your purchase helps medicine to save the world, so by getting a t-shirt you are curing cancer. Cancer is a sneaky monster and does not play fair, but we are US and we will work to end you!
Not bad for the first Monday in September.
Scholarship
Donation page (fiu.edu)
The Peggy O’Leary Seigler Award (Scholarship) Endowment Fund was established by the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in memory of Peggy O’Leary Seigler.
Peggy managed to affect the lives of countless individuals, as a mother, a wife, a professional, a friend, an athlete, a daughter, and a sister. Her kindness was reflected in the simple interactions of her every day. Her sense of fairness, of right and wrong, showed through in every decision she made. Her sense of humor and quick wit could bring on belly laughs. Her love of family and friends radiated out of her gigantic smile. And because of these traits, and so many others, she has been so sincerely missed.
She was loved.
There’s no way to capture the impact of our favorite goofball and have it match her radiance. We honor her memory in the ways we can, with kindness, fairness and a sense of adventure. We honor her with this scholarship but wish we did not have to.
– Winnie O’Leary, sister of Peggy O’Leary Seigler
Educator Summit-
Think Tank for Educators
Thanks to technology like smartphones, social media, and email, we are online all of the time and always connecting, but nothing beats slowing down and spending focused, quality time with other human beings.
Watching a group of twenty educators from across the country and in all kinds of different classroom and administrative roles come together over the span of just two days is a cool experience. With this Educator Summit cohort, we organized attendee-led presentations about creative approaches to implementing social emotional learning; putting trauma-informed practices into action; fostering an environment that’s truly supportive of staff members; reinforcing positive behavior management; incorporating game-based learning, entrepreneurship, student-created rubrics, and flipped classrooms; and building personal connections with every student.
