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Marathon swimmer Diana Nyad made her record-breaking swim from Cuba to Florida just recently. This morning, she started a 48-hour charitable swim to raise funds for Hurricane Sandy survivors. But, as her coach said, “I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose everything — everything you’ve worked for and strived for in your life, gone. It’s not easy. These are the people who become heroes. These are the people who pick up and start over.”

My piece for Hearst's Connecticut News Group starts: "When Lindsay O’Brien’s 15 minutes are up, she’s not going to linger one second longer than she has to in a 120-foot, two-lane pool that is going to be installed in New York City’s Herald Square.
'The minute that clock hits the 15 minutes I am jumping out of there,' said O’Brien, the project manager for Hurricane Sandy relief at Stamford-based AmeriCares, a nonprofit global health and disaster-relief organization.
When she and others from AmeriCares undertake 15 minutes of nonstop swimming as part of a fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief, it will challenge their endurance. But the true endurance test will be undertaken by marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who plans to swim for 48 hours straight — from 8:30 a.m. Tuesday to 8:30 a.m. Thursday — in an effort to raise money to help Sandy survivors.
Nyad, who is fresh off her record-breaking, 53-hour ocean swim from Cuba to Florida, said in an email that she wanted to help her hometown of New York City raise storm-relief money after Sandy hit. After a conversation with Carol A. Robles-Roman, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for legal affairs and counsel, Nyad came up with the idea of constructing a pool in 'in the heart of Manhattan, where I would swim for 48 continuous hours, in solidarity with those who had suffered great loss, and invite guest swimmers to shadow swim with me in the next lane' she wrote."

The rest of the story: http://blog.ctnews.com/stamford411/2013/10/08/stamfords-americares-swims...
 

Here is the piece I wrote for the Stamford Advocate about a local church starting an unconventional Sunday service at a local BBQ joint: 

"Great barbecue can seem like a religious pastime in America.

But a local church is taking it to the next level by holding a Sunday service in the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que joint in Stamford.

This Sunday at 10 a.m., nondenominational Black Rock Congregational Church's Long Ridge branch will hold its first 'Church at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que' with the trifecta of blues music, a discussion of the Bible and barbecue to follow.

Rick Allen, the pastor of Black Rock-Long Ridge, said a lot of people have a lot of baggage about going to church these days, either because they have left the faith they grew up with, or didn't have a strong faith in the first place. For all those people who wouldn't walk into a conventional church, Allen said he wants to welcome them with an unconventional experience of faith.

As the flier for the service says, 'This Ain't Your Momma's Church.'"

To read the full story: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/default/article/Stamford-s-Dinosaur-BBQ-...