SAL Friends,
Last season, when I thought of raising some
money for Terry Peterson, I didn’t foresee my family being on the receiving end
this season.
Our daughter, Christiana (Kit, 28), has
Erdheim Chester disease. You can do a
web search for that. The immediate
problem is that it’s made her blind: light and dark in the right eye and shapes
and colors in the left, and we don’t know if what she has will last. We spend a lot of time at the Hospital of the
Most people, I suppose, have some experience
with a serious medical condition – relative, neighbor, yourself. When that happens, we often want to do
something and that leads to a meal, a phone call, an e-mail, a card, a service,
kind words, a prayer, a donation. We
just feel that we should do something.
SAL has been very kind to the McElwee family.
You should know that it’s a case of charity
beginning at home. Kit was an SAL diver
for years and so was her younger sister.
Her older brother was a swimmer. I coached for 33 years and am still
active – I’ve worn many hats and I’m currently boys
registrar. I get to emcee the awards portion of the Mike Kennedy championship
meet each year. I enjoy being around all of the great people in SAL. Mom and wife, Christine, besides being a
supportive athletes’ mom and coach’s wife, preceded me as boys
registrar and she’s been a scorekeeper for more meets than our family has
fingers and toes! So that’s a little about us.
SAL teams have been generous this year. Chairman Pete Crippen just let it be known in
a sentence or two on the website and the response was, at times, overwhelming
and that brings me to the “why” for this posting by another SAL best friend,
Andrew Jesaitis.
We have a psychologist friend, parent of a
kid I coached years ago, who is helping our family cope with all this. We are lucky to have Tony. When I mentioned
the League’s overwhelming response, this is what he said. “Mark, you reached
out and touched a lot of people in your teaching and coaching careers and it’s
just coming back. It’s that simple. Just
say, ‘Thanks.’”
THANKS!
Friends are good. Tell the kids on your teams
that we said thanks. Tell your parents. Tell your coaches. Our family appreciates
it all. You are our Valentines! Blessings.
That’s from us. Greater than our situation is Pete’s idea for
SAL Charities, a fund to help other
SAL folks when the time comes. Don’t
forget that and send something that way. Treasurer Tom McManus’s contact info
is on the SAL website.
Mark McElwee, SAL boys registrar
Christine, Mark Jr.,
Christiana, and Cassandra