Jade Gregory, a 12-year-old competitive swimmer who grew up in Keperra and now attends Ferny Grove State High School, is spending every day this March in the pool, aiming to complete 60 kilometres of laps to raise $4,000 for youth mental health through the Laps for Life fundraiser, picking up where she left off two years ago as one of the campaign’s standout young achievers.
For Jade, this is not a new commitment. At ten years old, while still a student at Ferny Hills State School, she completed 35 kilometres across March 2024 and raised more than $3,600 for ReachOut Australia, finishing 48th among more than 10,000 swimmers nationally. That result placed her among the top 50 fundraisers in the entire country, at an age when most kids are still deciding what sport to take seriously.
Jade graduated Year 6 from Ferny Hills State School in December 2025 and now attends Ferny Grove State High School. She returns to Laps for Life in 2026 with a bigger goal, a longer distance, and the same conviction that drove her into the pool in the first place.
A Swimmer Who Has Always Known Why She’s in the Water
Jade has been swimming at Ferny Hills Pool since she was two years old, and now trains with a squad. That background of more than a decade in the water gives her 60-kilometre March target genuine credibility. In her first Laps for Life campaign, she pushed well beyond her original distance goal, at one point completing 50 laps of the 50-metre pool in a single session on her second-last day.
That 2024 campaign came with a test of motivation that many adults would have struggled to match. Jade acknowledged that fundraising felt difficult at the start but that knowing she was helping people and building awareness kept her going throughout. Her dad, she said, was her biggest cheerleader. Her final tally reached 700 laps, a figure remarkable at any age.
That combination of endurance, purpose and resolve carries directly into 2026. Her goal this March is straightforward: she is swimming because too many young lives are lost to suicide, and every lap she completes is one more contribution toward making sure there is always a safe place for young people to turn when life feels overwhelming.
Why the Cause Keeps Calling Her Back
The issue Jade swims for does not get smaller between campaigns. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for young people in Australia, and approximately 75 per cent of mental health problems occur before the age of 25. For a 12-year-old starting high school, that statistic is not abstract. It describes her own cohort, her own classmates, and the years ahead.
More than one in three young Australians are experiencing mental health difficulties, yet over a million are not getting the support they need. That gap between need and access is what ReachOut Australia exists to close. ReachOut operates entirely online, anonymously and without cost, providing young people with peer support, resources, tools and pathways to professional help that they can access on their own terms, at any time.
That model matters most for young people not yet ready to walk into a clinic or pick up a phone, and it is precisely what Jade’s fundraising directly supports.
A Growing Challenge With Growing Support
Jade set a personal fundraising target of $4,000 for 2026, with donations already flowing in from family, classmates and community supporters, including a matched giving programme through the PNI Foundation and Antipodes Partners that doubles every dollar raised. Her swim distance target of 60 kilometres is nearly double her 2024 effort, reflecting both her physical development and her deepening commitment to the campaign.
Laps for Life runs across the entire month of March, welcoming participants of any age and swimming ability. In 2024, more than 10,500 Australians took part, collectively swimming 98,828 kilometres and raising $3.4 million for ReachOut’s programmes. For Jade, the number that matters most is not her rank on the leaderboard but the number of young people her total helps reach.
She has also spoken openly about bigger swimming dreams, including the Olympics. The discipline she builds through campaigns like this one runs alongside those ambitions rather than against them.
How to Support Jade and the Broader Campaign
Donations to Jade Gregory’s 2026 Laps for Life page go directly to ReachOut Australia and can be made here. Every donation is matched through the PNI Foundation and Antipodes Partners programme. Community members and local schools wanting to run their own swim challenge in March can register at lapsforlife.com.au.
For young people seeking support, ReachOut provides free, anonymous and 100 per cent online services at au.reachout.com. Beyond Blue is available 24 hours a day on 1300 22 4636. Anyone in crisis can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Published 2-March-2026.
