One Sunday, Twenty Years: The Breaststroke Bootcamp Recap

On Sunday, September 20, 2026, Swim Strong Foundation gathered at St. Sebastian Parish Center in Woodside for the Breaststroke Bootcamp — a morning that turned out to be about a lot more than stroke technique. The date landed on World Cleanup Day, when roughly 410 million people around the world were out doing the same thing in their own communities: showing up to make things a little better. That spirit ran through the whole morning.

It was a real convergence — swimmers and their families, Swim Strong staff and coaches, and two guest instructors who’d traveled in just for the day: Lady Merle Liivand, 5-time Guinness World Record holder, and Jon Cleveland, 3-time Olympian, coach, and representative of Myrtha Pools — the company behind pools built for Olympic Games around the world. Between the swimmers in the water, the parents on deck, and the coaches running it all, the pool was as full of people as it was of energy.

Several people spoke over the course of the morning — Shawn Slevin on Swim Strong’s twenty years and its roots in this exact pool, Merle on the connection between swimming, discipline, and World Cleanup Day, and Jon on his own path from age-group swimmer to Olympian to now helping build the pools the next generation will train in. Longtime coach Coach Leni , who’s been part of this pool’s story for decades, was recognized as part of that same thread of twenty years of showing up.

By the end of the morning, what stood out wasn’t just the drills — it was how many different people, generations, and reasons for being there all met in the same water, on a day built around exactly that idea.

Remarks

Full remarks from the morning are below — video to follow.

Shawn Slevin, Founder & Executive Director

Lady Merle Liivand, 5-time Guinness World Record holder

Jon Cleveland, 3-time Olympian, coach, and representative of Myrtha Pool