62 hours of rowing, Fight-A-Thon remembers Grace Rett

BY BILL DOYLE
CFP CORRESPONDENT

Chris Rett is thrilled that the Holy Cross women’s crew team has helped Our Lady of the Valley Regional School in Uxbridge raise money to build and equip the GRACE Center in memory of his late daughter, Grace.
He always looks forward to the team’s annual fundraising row-a-thon, called the Love the Fight-a-Thon, at the center and he even rows a bit in it each year himself.
“I just love seeing the people who are remembering my daughter,” he said. “On a personal note, grief is a very difficult thing to share because the world in general is not good with grief. So it’s a really nice thing for me to be able to talk about Grace once a year whereas on a weekly basis it’s not necessarily the case. Everybody wants to talk about Grace during the fundraiser, but if you meet somebody at the grocery store it’s not the same thing.”
Grace, then a sophomore on the HC women’s crew team, set a world record for heavyweight women aged 19 and under by rowing continuously for 62 hours and three seconds at the Luth Athletic Complex at HC on Dec. 21, 2019. The following Jan. 15, a day after her 20th birthday, she was killed when her team van was involved in a traffic accident in Vero Beach, Florida, where her team was training.
The next December, the HC women’s crew team took turns rowing in the first 62-hour Love the Fight-a-Thon to raise money for the construction of the center, which opened in January of 2022. The fourth row-a-thon took place this year from 6 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 15, until 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17.
In honor of Grace’s record, 62 rowers filled the official time slots in the row-a-thon at the GRACE Center and Mr. Rett estimated at least that many more rowed along with them at different parts of the weekend. There were three rowing machines in the lobby and 10 more in the gym. Rowers from Grace’s high school of Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, Conn., HC alumni and OLV students also rowed. A total of $45,905 was raised.
“I just think the number of people who want to dig in and help,” Mr. Rett said, “is the amazing thing and how much her life reached people even though she wasn’t here that long.”
Donations can still be made by mailing checks to Our Lady of the Valley Regional School, 75 Mendon St., Uxbridge, MA., 01569., or visiting givingforgrace.com. Last year, the row-a-thon raised slightly more than $30,000. Mr. Rett said the row-a-thon has raised close to $200,000 in four years, but he wonders how many of the donations to other fundraisers for the school were inspired by the rowers.
The HC rowers are one of four groups printed on the gym floor as largest donors, joining Father Nicholas Desimone, St. Mary Parish pastor; Koopman Lumber and the family of Thomas Wickstrom, OLV Consultative Board President.
Mr. Rett said school savings and various fundraisers and donations, including an anonymous donation of $1 million, paid for the $4 million cost of the construction of the GRACE Center.
Mr. Rett admitted he wasn’t sure the row-a-thon would last so many years and even if it did he expected the amount of money raised to drop off.  
“But it went up this year and I know a large part of that is the girls who knew and rowed with Grace,” he said, “have all graduated and they’re not poor college students anymore. So they’ve been able to help out quite a bit.”
During the row-a-thon, Mr. Rett heard several stories about his daughter. The mother of a member of the HC women’s crew team thanked the Retts because Grace had taught her daughter how to say the Hail Mary, the prayer the team recites before each race.
Grace and her sister Brianne, who will begin her junior year as a thrower on the track and field team at St. Anselm College next month, both attended OLV. Their mother, Mary Jo, teaches music at the school. Brianne came up with the idea to call the center the “Grace Recreation Athletic Complex and Education” Center in order to use each letter of her sister’s first name.  
The name of the fundraiser used to be Grace to the Finish, but has changed to Love the Fight A-Thon, after the mind-over-pain and enjoy-the-challenge motto of a Ready, Set, Row summer camp she attended.
The Retts belong to St. Mary Parish, whose church is located next door to OLV. Before Good Shepherd Parish closed in Linwood, the family belonged there. When Grace was young, she was as an altar server, reader and cantor at Mass.
Grace had a tattoo on her left bicep of the Bible verse Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” The verse is written above the doors to the main entrance to the Grace Center gym, next to a photo of her with her tattoo.”
“I hope someday,” Mr. Rett said, “there will be a fourth grader who never met Grace, but who will look at the gym and look at the picture and say, ‘Wow, she must have been pretty cool and the Bible wasn’t too cool for her so maybe it’s not too cool for me.’”
A plaque detailing Grace’s record hangs in the Luth Athletic Complex hallway where Grace rowed for 62 consecutive hours.
Jane Doyle of Manhattan spearheaded the fundraiser with her roommate and fellow HC junior Laura McHugh of West Roxbury who is a coxswain on the crew team. Miss Doyle never met Grace, but she wanted to get involved in the fundraiser.
“Who Grace was and her impact is the foundation of our team’s culture,” Miss Doyle said. “Remembering her and loving the fight, it’s learning how to embrace challenge and struggle with grace and courage. It’s just trying to uphold what our team stands for myself and for all of my teammates.”
Last year when Miss Doyle took part in the fundraiser for the first time, she rowed 50,000 meters continuously and she decided to double that this year. So after she rowed from 7-10 a.m. Friday and from 1-2 a.m. on Saturday, she rowed from 1-9:30 a.m. on Sunday for a total of 100,000 meters over 8-½ hours. Her last shift was the longest she ever rowed consecutively, and it was only a little more than an eighth of the time that Grace rowed to set the record.
“She went for (the equivalent of) nine marathons straight,” Miss Doyle said, “and it really gave me an appreciation for her.”
The HC rowers also spent time with the OLV students in their gym classes.
“It’s another extraordinary job by the Holy Cross women’s crew team,” said Edward Reynolds, OLV principal. “They’ve become wonderful friends and supporters of our community. Even beyond the money, it’s an important event for our school and our families because the Holy Cross women’s crew team exemplifies everything that we want our students to be.”
The money this year will be used at the GRACE Center to purchase gym equipment and the school is considering buying a storage shed and carpet tile for the floor.
The center is used by the school and community. Since Mr. Reynolds started as principal at OLV four years ago, enrollment in the school with students in pre-kindergarten age 3 through eighth grade has jumped from 180 to 225. He credits the center and the row-a-thon with playing a huge role by bringing attention to the school.
“It also showed what kind of community we are,” he said, “and how dedicated to Catholic education and cooperation and working together we are. It shows we can accomplish great things when we work together.”
Mr. Reynolds said parishioners from St. Mary, St. Patrick of Whitinsville and St. Peter of Northbridge are very involved in the school and fundraising.
The Golf Fore Grace indoor golf tournament at FORE Golf in Westborough on Saturday, March 16, will also raise funds for the GRACE Center. The event raised $20,000 last year.  Entry fee is $100 per person. To enter, visit golfforegrace.com.