If you’re anywhere near the Statue of Liberty, Liberty State Park or Ellis Island on Aug. 19, you may see hundreds of Navy SEALs and others swimming, running, and doing pushups and pull-ups. It’s the Navy SEAL Foundation’s annual New York City SEAL Swim.
The Foundation’s Chris Irwin, a former SEAL commander, says the event just keeps growing.
“This started 5 years ago with 35 SEALs as the swimmers, we’re now at 250-plus people but we’ve also included now first responders, firefighters, police, and then other people as well,” he said.
Irwin said the purpose is to raise money to help active and retired SEALs in a number of ways.
“Anything from sort of respite care when people are deployed, to various financial assistance programs, to children’s camps that we provide in the summer, we have a whole series of camps that are specifically for the children of Naval Special Warfare, which is what people normally think of as the SEAL community,” said Irwin.
Aid also comes in the form of post-career training, scholarships, and grief counseling, he said, adding that the fundraising has been going well.
“So far we’ve raised, or they’ve raised I should say, over $400,000, which is well past actually where we were hoping to be, so that’s great,” Irwin said. “I think we might close this thing out at close to half a million dollars raised.”
The event is modeled on the SEALs training regimen, with a 3.5-mile swim, one mile flag run, and hundreds of pushups and pull-ups.
If you would like to donate to the Foundation, go to https://www.navysealfoundation.org/donate-a/.