NC State Club Swimming Gives Back to the Community

NC State Club Swimming hosted their second Annual Triangle Pajama Meet for the Kids on Saturday, February 4 at the Carmichael Aquatic Center. Club Swimming started the event last year with the intent of increasing the club’s community service impact and invited Duke Club Swimming, UNC Club Swimming and NC State Water Polo to collaborate.

The event brings students and swimmers together to benefit the kids at UNC Children’s Hospital, so instead of charging meet fees for each swimmer, co-presidents Melissa Goto and Paul Wayand asked participants to bring two pairs of children’s pajamas as their entrance fee.

“We directly asked our contacts at the UNC Children’s Hospital what the patients need/want the most. For the past two years, they have told us that the children really love the comforting feeling fun, colorful, cozy pajamas bring to their hospital environment” says Goto.

This year the club partnered with NC State’s Education Council to collect donations. President of both Club Swimming and the Education Council, Melissa Goto spearheaded the collaboration and helped organize a winter pajama drive within the College of Education. The donations from the meet totaled to almost 300 pairs of pajamas for the kids, about 100 more than the previous year.

Though the swim meet brings together otherwise competing teams, the schools put aside their rivalries for a day to allow the kids at UNC Children’s Hospital to be the sole winners of this event. “Because the focus of the meet is truly the children and the donations, there is no ‘winner’ as far as swimming results go. We still race and record times for all swimmers, but unlike our other regular season meets, we do not keep score”.

Club Swimming hopes to expand their community impact and continue the collaboration with Duke and UNC’s club teams to further develop the Annual Triangle Pajama Meet for the Kids for years to come.

“We love hosting the meet but have also thrown around the idea of rotating the meet location with our partner teams-UNC and Duke.”