Harlem Swim Team holds Awards Banquet for 2018-19 Teams
Share
Tweet
With recent events disrupting the way things can proceed and with the current summer swim season in question the organization felt the need to recognize the efforts of the kids. Pictured above are the winners of awards for placing at the Divisional and State swim meets during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Although a few swimmers were unable to attend this group of swimmers were on hand to accept their awards at the recent BBQ banquet for the Harlem Swim team held at the City Park.
Many small non-profit organizations, especially in rural America, have significant difficulty with funding for even the most basic of financial needs. These organizations in Montana and more significantly the Hi-line are not immune to these struggles.
In our communities those groups are often related to clubs and organizations to support our local youth i.e. swim teams, 4-H Clubs, FFA, Youth Baseball/Tee-ball leagues or Chinook/Blaine County AAU Wrestling amongst many. Several community based clubs like the Chinook Rod and Gun Club or the Blaine County Cruisers provided valuable outlets for our residents.
Our communities have always been outstanding in showing support for these groups and is definitely something we take great pride in. However with such a large number of clubs needing our help and a very small population to draw funding from, many of these organizations struggle to reach basic funding needs and the burden is often placed directly on the parents of those kids involved or the members of the club themselves.
The Harlem Swim Team is one of these worthy groups and has struggled in recent years to provide their annual end of year BBQ for those kids that place at the Divisional and state swim meets. This season has already faced many obstacles as the pool remains closed for the time being and the season itself remains in flux as we deal with the COVID-19 Pandemic and the associated quarantine and lock-down. Restrictions are being lifted each week but the go ahead to proceed with a pool opening and subsequent season has not been reached yet.
The Harlem Swim Team representatives, spearheaded by the parents, took it upon themselves to give these kids something positive as we move through the process and recently provided a BBQ awards banquet that was held at the Harlem City Park.
This banquet recognized the efforts of the kids that placed at the state and/or divisional swim meets during the 2018 and 2019 swim seasons. Alaynee Hawley and Andrew Rasmussen were also recognized for stepping up to mentor the swimmers as Co-head Coaches during the 2019 season. Both of these kids also swam for the team and were just 15 years of age at the beginning of the campaign. Both swimmers/coaches turned 16 during the season. Coaching a youth group can be a challenging en-devour for anyone and for theses two to be able to compete and coach is a superb effort on their part.
Congratulations to all Harlem swimmers that were recognized at the banquet.
