Thanet Swim Club's Feeder Squad (10 years and under) held a ‘Swimathon' on Thursday night. It was a night off from their normal training, instead using their talents to good use in trying to ‘swim' a Marathon to help raise money for the charity ‘Shelter'.

Within a normal training session, each child tried to swim as far as they could. By adding together each swimmers distance, the aim to was to equal the distance of a Marathon – and they succeeded – over Three and a half times! A total of 95.34 miles were swum! - almost double last years first attempt when they swam 57 miles.

The children were supporting the fund raising efforts of Edward Kearney, a parent of three club members, who was running in the London Marathon on Sunday for the charity. Edward's is determined to raise enough money to give 40 kids a bed for the night, out of the elements.

In his training throughout the winter, the bitter cold he experienced in his morning runs was all the motivation he needed to keep going knowing that somewhere, the homeless were exposed to the same elements and he wanted to help change that. Shelter is a national campaigning charity working to improve the lives of homeless and badly housed people.