A summer storm didn’t dampen the spirits and the fundraising efforts of the 500 swimmers and volunteers who showed up at Alpine Lake in Innsbrook on the morning of August 26th to make waves to fight cancer. More than $300,000 was raised by Swim Across America – St. Louis for its local beneficiary Siteman Cancer Center. Unfortunately the storm did keep the swimmers from actually swimming for safety reasons.

Swim Across America has raised more than $1.6 million for innovative cancer research and clinical trials at Siteman Cancer Center since it came to St. Louis in 2016.

Swim Across America is a national organization with 24 open water swims across the country from Nantucket to under the Golden Gate Bridge that raise funds for cancer research. Since its inception in 1987, the nonprofit organization has raised more than $100 million nationally that has helped fund four FDA approved life-saving cancer immunotherapy treatments including: Yervoy, Opdivo, Tecentriq and Keytruda, and supports research with more than 60 scientific grants funded each year.

Last summer, the very exciting news about a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering was published in The New England Journal of Medicine that showed a 100 percent success rate in treating patients in a phase 2 clinical trial for advanced rectal cancer with an immunotherapy treatment. That trial was funded by early-stage grant funding from Swim Across America.

For more information and how to donate, visit www.swimacrossamerica.org.