My name is Katharine Borczak, I live in Mississauga Ontario.

I’m here because I’m a huge supporter of Great Lakes Trust and Glow Adventures. We have some amazing leaders in the community, Madhu, Loren King and Mauro and Janice, that facilitate and come up with these initiatives to draw awareness and bring awareness to things such as the need to clean up our lakes, to the need to eliminate one use plastics and plastics generally.

For me, swimming in the lake, it actually started in a transition. I used to do triathlons and practice mostly in pools and there was a lot of hours consumed with the training and my mom unfortunately got very sick with Alzheimer’s Dementia and I knew I had to scale back on my training, I had to scale back on running and riding. A friend of mine, a dear friend of mine who’s a coach said, you need to follow what you’re passionate about so you can stay healthy and stay active. For me that was swimming. I’ve always swam, I was the girl who jumped in the lake and swam to the island and back. My swimming, though it’s my sport and I do participate in a lot of races, it’s my meditative state, so in the morning before I start my day and get to work I’m usually in the water south Mississauga at a small little beach called Water’s Edge where sometimes it’s just 10 minutes, sometimes it’s 30 minutes but it’s just my time, my quiet time to clear my mind, be active because I know it’s going to be a crazy day.