5 for Good: Trio overcomes challenges to complete endurance swim for Mass Breast Cancer Coalition
Team from Diamond Physical Therapy takes on Against the Tide to fight breast cancer
Team from Diamond Physical Therapy takes on Against the Tide to fight breast cancer
Team from Diamond Physical Therapy takes on Against the Tide to fight breast cancer
Chloe Smagula, Jordan Marquis and Jasmine Gillespie spend a lot of time at the Beede Swim and Fitness Center in Concord.
The girls, who range in age from 11 to 14, all love to swim and for years have been working with Megan Cohen and Laura Diamond from Diamond Physical Therapy in the pools on-site.
Both Cohen and Diamond are experts in both land-based and aquatic physical therapy.
"The water has the power to do so many positive things," Cohen said. "Especially if you have a disability, sometimes getting in the water can make that disability in a sense disappear, and you can become able to do anything that you want, including swimming."
Each with unique physical challenges, the three girls are training for a major endurance event, the Against the Tide Swim, Run, Walk to benefit the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition or MBCC.
Diamond founded the event more than three decades ago.
"I love what they do,” Diamond said of MBCC. “They work on education, prevention of the disease, public policy, fighting, environmental causes that cause breast cancer, and it's just the fabulous organization."
The girls said they have a variety of motivations. For Smagula, it's her aunt.
"She did have cancer, my aunt Allison,” she said.
"Both my grandmas and my great aunt are breast cancer survivors,” Gillespie said.
The girls all raised funds and swam a half mile last year, this year Marquis plans to swim a full mile.
"I just like doing different challenges and seeing how much I can do and how much better I can get," she said.
Marquis, who walks with a prosthetic said she only doesn't wear it while sleeping or in the water. For Gillespie, her hard work has allowed her to shed the leg braces she once relied on all the time.
"I have spastic diplegia,” she explained. “It is a minor form of cerebral palsy."
Diamond has given the girls a special nickname.
"The Dream Team,” she said. “I really feel like they are. They're just amazing, courageous, resilient kids who have overcome so many challenges in their lives and have beaten the odds, and they're just really determined to succeed."
Find information about the girls' fundraising team Making Waves and the Against the Tide event here.