Carl Oake Rotary Swim marks 38 years of a beloved Peterborough tradition

Peterborough, ON (March 2024) – For another year, the Peterborough YMCA hosted a beloved community tradition, the Carl Oake Rotary Swim. CENTURY 21 United Realty and the Peterborough Rotary Club brought the event to life, continuing a 38-year streak of supporting the local community and Easter Seals Canada.

Vanessa Oake Hogan, owner of CENTURY 21 United Realty, took up the mantle of pulling the event together from her father. “[Our Dad] put so much into this event every year, and he built so much momentum that it wouldn’t make sense not to carry it on. It’s great to see the ambassadors from the organizations where the money is donated come out to support the event, and it feels great for all of us to give back to the community.”

This year’s event saw 19 teams compete, including the Special Olympics swim team, which has been participating for five years. In addition to supporting Easter Seals Canada, the national charitable partner of CENTURY 21 Canada, the event raised funds for a literacy non-profit, Breakfast for Kids, and local homeless shelters.

“We’re a close community here in Peterborough, and it’s so important to our company that we support the people around us,” says Oake Hogan. To better include everyone who wanted to participate in the swim, this year saw the addition of the ‘Cannonball’ and the ‘Floating Catwalk’ challenge for anyone who could not join the swim or were supporting the event solo. “It was a great addition, I think it’s definitely something we would want to continue.”

One of this year’s supporters was the local lacrosse team, the CENTURY 21 Lakers, which CENTURY 21 United Realty has been a major sponsor of since 2014. The brokerage recently renewed their sponsorship for another three seasons. “This partnership made sense for a lot of reasons. One being community support and I think there is synergy in partnerships like this. The team benefits, our team benefits and I think the community benefits from this partnership (and) I know it’s valuable to our agents to see us being a part of the community this way.”

The Lakers donated $1000 towards this year’s Swim, and with the funds raised over the history of this event, the total has now reached over $1.4 million.