During an election night party
Bill Romanelli of
APCO Worldwide approached
Gary Dietrich, founder of
Citizen Voice and
Safely Out, saying that he wanted to swim a 10k to raise 10k for Safely Out. As the weeks and months went by the event slowly evolved into something more. Saturday's "
Swim for Life," hosted by
California Family Fitness, included not only Bill swimming a 10k (440 laps), but the "Sports Guy Celebrity Floatie Challenge" featuring Gary Dietrich,
Pat Walsh (the "Sports Guy" from
KFBK 1530) and
KTXL FOX 40's Paul Robbins and many other local swimmers. All swam laps to raise money to put
Safely Out kits into the hands of our most vulnerable citizens. The no rules "Floatie Challenge" was won by Paul Robbins, who did pre-interviews in his hippo tie, suit jacket and board shorts and Bill completed his Swim for Life, doing two extra laps, in about 2.5 hours. It was a great event and most importantly we not only had great pre-event and event coverage of
Good Day Sacramento,
Fox 40 and
KFBK and will be featured in an upcoming edition of
Sacramento Magazine, but thousands of dollars were raised to help continue to distribute Safely Out kits across the Sacramento region. The Safely Out team and I are looking forward to bringing some changes to next year's "Swim for Life" to bring additional media coverage and increase public participation, so stay tuned for updates and click here to learn more about the important work that Safely Out is doing in our community.
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