When the Bill Keating, Jr. Great Ohio River Swim was canceled this year due to COVID-19, local youth nature nonprofit Adventure Crew lost one of its sources of fundraising.
The annual and only open-water swim from one bank of the Ohio River to the other and back helps Adventure Crew get teens from 24 city schools in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky into nature via activities like kayaking, biking, hiking and swimming.
And having to cancel this year’s event was especially unfortunate because it was the third year they haven’t been able to conduct the swim: last year’s Great Ohio River Swim was canceled due to an algae bloom and the year before was deemed unsafe due to high water.
Thankfully, someone has stepped in to swim for Adventure Crew.
Caroline Keating — whose father Bill was one of the first to sign up to tackle the Great Ohio River Swim in 2007 and continued to support it until he died of brain cancer in 2017 — is swimming a full 5K in the Ohio River in hopes of raising $5,000 for Adventure Crew. (After Bill died, the swim took on his name in remembrance.)
“I love Adventure Crew’s philosophy of getting kids outside and doing activities,” says Caroline, a former swimmer for St. Ursula Academy and Bowling Green State University. “Growing up, I had the privilege to be outside and active in sports, and I still love being outdoors as an adult.”
A release from Adventure Crew says the swim is a new challenge for Caroline, also an ultramarathon runner, who has never swum that far in open water. She expects to complete the event in 60 to 90 minutes on Aug. 30, leaving from the Public Landing on a boat that will take her 5K upstream. She will start her swim around 7:30 a.m. and swim back to the Public Landing. Safety boaters will monitor her during her swim and her progress will be updated live on the Bill Keating, Jr. Great Ohio River Swim Facebook page.
“While we’re sad we couldn’t gather 200 swimmers on the river this year, we’re so grateful for Caroline’s support and so excited to watch her swim,” says Miriam Wise, Adventure Crew’s associate director. “Her efforts will help us raise critical funds to support our teens at a time when getting outdoors is more important than ever.”
The Great Ohio River Swim is planned for 2021, but a date has yet to be announced. Registrations from 2020 will be carried over.
For more information on the mission of Adventure Crew, visit adventurecrew.org. And to donate to Caroline Keating’s 5K swim, visit adventure-crew.networkforgood.com.
*A previous version of this story said the swim was the main source of fundraising for Adventure Crew. Paddlefest, another outdoor Ohio River event, is in fact their main source of fundraising — it was also canceled this year due to COVID-19.
This article appears in The Burger Issue 2020.
