Angel More has been swimming for 10 years and she recently challenged herself to finish her longest-ever distance open water swim. The 16-year-old from California just completed the feat, swimming 28.5-miles around Manhattan and it was all for Children International. Angel says on her blog What I love about CI is that, in addition to necessities like life saving medical care, food, education and clothing, kids get to find problems in their community and tackle them as a team with grants from CI. Last year kids took on issues like recycling, chicken farming, education on dangers of early marriage and girls empowerment.
Her nine hour swim also included the 20 Bridges Challenge, where she passes under the 20 bridges around Manhattan. More raised over $58,000 for the nonprofit! She says, “The most challenging part isn’t the distance, it’s the heat.”
Angel first swim for charity was a 20 mile swim across Catalina Channel in California, which along with the Manhattan swim are the first two legs of what's called the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.
Her next goal is to swim the English Channel, which will make her one of around 200 athletes in the world to ever accomplish the triple crown!
Perhaps an even loftier goal is her fund raising goal that she set for herself last month. In the next two years, I plan to raise $1 million for Children International’s HOPE scholarship fund—to support 5,000 teens around the world who want to further their education in high school, college, or technical school.