Awesome Mama: Rachel Mark

In 2015, we launched our new Awesome Mama series.  One of our favorite things about publishing Macaroni Kid is the chance to connect with other moms in our community.  Often times these connections inspire us and remind us of the ability of one person to make a difference.  Our hope is to introduce you to some amazing moms living right in our communities who not only are doing unique and wonderful things, but also deserve to have some attention brought to their mission.

Rachel Mark is well-known in the Snoqualmie Valley community as the owner of Delphinium Salon, big supporter of our schools, and now she is starting the Wildcat Swimming Club to share her love of swimming with others in our area!

What is your MISSION?  What do you want to accomplish?
My mission, or hope, for the Wildcat Swimming Club is to provide a low-key, year round, Swim Team in the Snoqualmie Valley, offering off-season competitive swimming training for middle school and high school kids, ages 11-18, and help facilitate a love of competitive swimming in local youth.

Wildcat Swimming Club provides a way for kids 6th grade through 12th grade to strengthen their knowledge of competitive swimming techniques, such as starts off the block, flip turns, advanced stroke techniques and overall ability to compete with other strong swimmers their age.

Wildcat Swimming Club is a year-round swim team that is low-key and low pressure, however swimmers will find that by working hard each week at practice, and setting goals to progress their individual times, they will see results quickly as the program is designed to build strength and technique in competitive swimming, while having a lot of fun and building a love for swimming!

What inspired/encouraged you to start the Wildcat Swimming Club?  Is there one specific moment when you knew this was what you wanted to do?  
My oldest daughter is a freshman at Mount Si this year and she swims for the girls swim team.  I had the opportunity to be the team photographer, which allowed me to be on the pool deck during meets, and I was able to see how well all the girls progressed through the season! They learned so much, in such a short time, and I felt sad that all that hard work would stop until next August, when they started swimming again.  I felt compelled to provide a way for them to continue to improve all year round, which will allow them to be more competitive in the KingCo league.  

How did your life before children influence your mission? What part do your children play in your mission?  I grew up swimming on a summer swim team at a private club in Bellevue, where I swam for 8 summers in a row.  I also swam for the year round Chinook Club Team in Middle School and for Newport High School.

My husband and I have lived in the Snoqualmie Valley for 14 years and I’ve always been disappointed with the lack of swimming culture here and sad that my kids won’t have the same swimming experiences that I had growing up.  

All those years of swimming built a love and a passion for the sport that I’m very excited to share that with the youth of the Snoqualmie Valley.  I’m hoping that we will find some amazing swimmers out here that just haven’t had the opportunity to know they love it!

What lessons/values are you learning through this process?  
Swimming is such a fantastic sport because it’s very individual, but also you are a part of a team.  You get the social comradery of a team, but you are in complete control of how successful you are as a team player.  

Swimming is based on your individual times, in each event that you participate in, so you have control over that completely. You don’t rely on a team to get you to the finals.  It’s all about you!   

Here are a few benefits of swimming according to USA Swimming:

• Swimming is an outstanding activity for people of all ages. 
• Swimming is a healthy "lifetime" activity. Participants may be 1 or 101 years old.
• Swimming is relatively injury free in comparison to other youth sports.
• Swimming teaches the life lessons of sport and sportsmanship which include learning to deal with winning and losing, as well as working with officials, teammates and coaches.
• Swimming motivates participants to strive for self-improvement and teaches goal orientation.  
• Swimming cultivates a positive mental attitude and high self-esteem.
• Swimming can prevent drowning.      

The Wildcat Swimming Club will hold its first practice on Tuesday, January 19th at the Si View Pool in North Bend. For more information on this amazing new program, please visit the website at www.wildcatswimmingclub.com or on Facebook.

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