SEALs for Sunshine undertake 16-mile swim to help military families enjoy Camp Sunshine

Mike Wisecup, Matt Shipman, Lew Emery and
Chad Kalocinski after the first fundraiser in
August 2014 which was a 13 mile swim

By Elizabeth Richards

In 2014, four active duty Navy SEALs participated in the inaugural SEALs for Sunshine event, a 13-mile swim across Sebago Lake. On July 25^th, 2019, SEALs for Sunshine will hold their sixth annual event with the longest swim event to date.

Swimmers, including SEALs for Sunshine founder, retired Navy SEAL Commander Michael Wisecup, will navigate from Long Lake in Bridgton, through Naples into Brandy Pond, down the Songo River and across the northern part of Sebago Lake, where they’ll end their journey at Point Sebago, next door to Camp Sunshine.

Wisecup started SEALs for Sunshine to raise awareness of what the camp could offer to military families with children facing life threatening diseases. The first event in 2014 coincided with Camp Sunshine’s 30-year anniversary campaign, “Going the Distance.  “Going the Distance seemed to fit with a 13-mile half marathon swim across Sebago Lake,” Wisecup said.

Every year since then, SEALs for Sunshine has held at least one intense physical challenge to support the goal of raising money for military families to attend Camp Sunshine. Just over $500,000 has been raised through these events, prompting a significant increase in military families – both active duty and veterans – attending camp.  Many of these families would not have known about Camp Sunshine without the publicity surrounding these events, Wisecup said.

The funds raised through SEALs for Sunshine events directly supports both attendance at the camp and travel costs to alleviate the financial burden of getting to and from camp, Wisecup said. 

The goal the first year was for each of the four swimmers to raise $2500, the approximate cost of getting one family to camp. They ended up raising just over $250,000.  “We were blown away.  There was so much support for it, support for the camp, support for the military. It was really nice,” Wisecup said.

Since that first event, SEALs for Sunshine participants collectively have swum 391 miles, biked 770 miles, run 116 miles, and put in 780 miles worth of stand-up paddle boarding.

“We try to do something different every year,” Wisecup said.  “This year, we’re coming back into the water.” 

The events are deliberately extremely physical challenges, Wisecup said, to bring some awareness to the difficulty a family faces when their child receives a life altering diagnosis.  “At that moment, that family has to fight for everything. They can’t quit. That’s a cornerstone of the SEAL ethos - never quit,” Wisecup said. 

While participants have the benefit of preparation and training, families don’t have that luxury, Wisecup said. “They don’t get to prepare their finances, their life, and put everything in order,” he said. “We’re lucky to be able to prepare, but we need to make it hard so that it connects, and it’s something we can have in common with those families as well.” 

This year, according to a fundraising letter sent by Camp Sunshine Development Director Michael Smith, there is a matching challenge from Ralph and Suzanne Heckert and the Capital Group, so each donation made will be doubled.

SEALs for Sunshine events have enabled more than 200 military families from across the country to travel to Camp Sunshine, Smith said in the letter, but there are many more who still need help. 

To support the July 25^th Swim for Sunshine, visit www.campsunshine.org or www.sealsforsunshine.org.

Editor’s note: Michael Wisecup, has been named vice president for strategic initiatives at Colby College. His responsibilities include operationalizing and managing key strategic initiatives, developing strategies and processes to assess and improve the quality and effectiveness across all areas of the College, coordinating special projects to ensure strategic alignment, increasing organizational focus, and facilitating collaboration regarding strategic planning, execution, and crisis management. 

Retired Navy Seal with local roots strives to build strong communities

General Dempsey awarding Mike Wisecup his second
 Bronze Star at the Pentagon in 2011

By Elizabeth Richards

After a twenty-year career as a Navy Seal, Mike Wisecup has settled in Maine hoping to find an opportunity to use the lessons he has learned to build strong communities.

Though his mother’s family has lived in Windham for generations, Wisecup was not born or raised in the area. His family moved a lot due to his father’s job, but they vacationed in the area, and his parents settled in Windham in their retirement, becoming active members of the community.

Moving a lot as a child set the perfect stage for a career in the military, Wisecup said, since he didn’t feel like there was one place he belonged to. “I was comfortable with the idea of the adventure, of something different,” he said.

Though his father and uncles had been drafted and served in times of war, Wisecup said no one was pushing him to join the military, and in fact when he first attempted to get into the Air Force Academy, he found himself woefully unqualified. He’d done little to no research on the process, he said. “I just wanted to fly. I thought that would be cool,” he said.

After that interview, his eyes were opened, Wisecup said. He attended a Division 3 college, joined social organizations, did a lot of volunteering, and worked diligently to keep his grades up. The following year, he reapplied and won a spot at the Naval Academy.

Wisecup’s first encounter with Seals happened in between his freshman and sophomore years at the Academy. “I had never met better people in my life. They were kind, they were focused, they were fit, they were inclusive,” he said. “I liked their qualities, I liked their ethics, I liked their character, and I decided then that I wanted to be around people like that.”

That’s when he set out on the rigorous path to becoming a Seal himself. With great focus and determination, he was able to secure one of fifteen positions for Seal training when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1998. Though over 140 people began that training with Wisecup, under 20 graduated. “It’s no joke that it is one of the hardest military training programs in the world. People go there and they want to be Seals, they’re prepared physically, they’re trained – and they still quit,” he said.

Mike Wisecup on board an LCAC with the USS Nassau
in the background on the coast of Djibouti in 2002

Mental strength and the ability to deal with failure repeatedly are important in making it through Seal training, Wisecup said. “The biggest thing I learned coming out of Seal training is that I can do anything I want to do if I just focus on it and work hard,” he said.

Wisecup’s career as a Seal included many deployments, including to Southeast Asia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. During one deployment he was injured and earned a purple heart. He was involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and came full circle to help the U.S. pull out of Iraq in 2010.

In 2007, Wisecup was selected as an Olmstead Scholar, a program that immerses military officers into another culture while they earn a master’s degree. He and his wife spent two years in Mumbai, India, an important growing experience for him as a person, Wisecup said.

The sheer number of people, the pollution, being treated differently as a minority, and the disparity between classes were all challenges Wisecup had never faced before. He said they saw both the best of humanity and the worst, every single day. “It really makes you question who you are as a person,” he said.

That questioning remained when he returned, he said. It changed the way he lives now, prompting him to question why things are done a certain way, to challenge assumptions, and to look at all sides of an issue to gain new perspective.

Other notable experiences in Wisecup’s career include acting as the personal aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and helping to develop policies to counter ISIS, as well as other counterterrorism policies, that required coordination with many agencies.

With wife, Emily

Near the end of his military career, Wisecup was selected for command. This two-year job is like being the CEO of a small business, Wisecup said. His command with a Seal team of approximately 500 people required him to oversee all resources, finances, training, and personnel. He was also responsible for culture and discipline, a complex task that involved people from a wide range of backgrounds, including the vast network of support people required to carry out successful missions.

“Being in command where you have the leverage to integrate all those capabilities together is really rewarding,” Wisecup said. “I loved it. I am now in constant search of opportunity similar in scope.”

Wisecup finished his command in 2017, volunteering for one last deployment in Iraq, where the Iraqis were now getting to a point where they could defend themselves. It was satisfying to see the years of hard work pay off, he said, to know that the Iraqis knew how to handle themselves. That deployment ended in June of 2018, and Wisecup retired in August 2018 after 20 years of commissioned service.

Ready to settle somewhere and become part of a community, Wisecup and his wife came to Maine, where they are currently renting in Portland. He has a fellowship at Colby College through May, putting the leadership skills he’s gained to use in ways that both benefit the college and help demonstrate what veterans have to offer.

Wisecup is currently waiting to hear from Harvard, where he hopes to attend a one-year program in Public Administration. Even if accepted, he will stay in Maine, he said. “The education will be valuable, but I want to be here. I still want this to be my home,” he said.

Wisecup has already begun to build connections and give back to Maine communities. In 2014, he started an annual event to raise money and awareness for Camp Sunshine to help military families. In that first event, four active duty Seals swam 13 miles across Sebago Lake. Every year since, they’ve completed a tough task in Maine, as well as events in San Diego. To date, just over $500,000 has been raised to help military families attend Camp Sunshine. Their 2019 event is a 16-mile swim from Bridgton to Casco on July 25th. More information can be found on www.sealsforsunshine.org.