Paris, Ont. man sets on swim across Lake Ontario for mental health

A man from Paris, Ontario is embarking on a 20 hour swim across Lake Ontario Friday all to support mental health care, dementia research and suicide prevention.

Thirty-five-year-old Jason Kloss is kicking off his journey across the lake Friday morning at Queen’s Royal Park in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

He is set to swim solo 51 kilometers all the way to Toronto’s Marilyn Bell Park.

Two boating crews will join him to ensure a safe trip across the lake.

Kloss has already exceeded his goal of raising $50,000 for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

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Kloss says the cause is near to his heart after he struggled with his mental health following the passing of his grandfather who battled Alzheimer’s and losing a close friend to suicide recently as well.

This isn’t the first time the swimmer journeyed across a lake for a fundraising swim. He first swam 65 kilometers across Lake Huron in 2011, raising $22 thousand for cancer research.

This is all following in his grandfather’s footsteps who completed the same swim across Lake Huron three decades earlier.

With the swim set to last into the early hours of Saturday morning, there is still time to donate through his website.

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