Feature

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for some, taking a dip in icy waters is a slick way to raise cold cash for worthy causes

By Dick Isenhour

It will be a cold day in Northville, Michigan, before John Miller plunges into the icy Mill Pond behind the Water Wheel Health Club again. And that day will be January 27, 2007, during the city’s Fire and Ice Festival as the Northville Kiwanis club conducts its second annual Polar Bear Plunge.

You can call these Kiwanians and their fellow citizens hardy or you can call them crazy, but you can’t call them indifferent. The Northville club is among several Kiwanis clubs that risk hypothermia all in the name of a good cause.

 “We had a problem to solve,” John says, trying to explain why his club would encourage normally sane people to throw caution to the frigid wind and take part in something as chilling as a Polar Bear Plunge. “Our traditional fundraiser—selling sausages at the city’s Victorian Festival each September—is very much dependent on the weather. If the weather is nice, we sell a lot of sausages and the many programs and organizations we sponsor benefit from the money we raise. But if the weather is bad, sausage sales are flat and so is the support we can lend our community.”

The club needed to come up with something that packed more sizzle than sausages and that would not rely on the weather for its success, John says. A veteran of two previous dives into the Detroit River to help raise money for Toys for Tots, he suggested the club organize its own Polar Bear Plunge—an event that could unfold whether the weather was naughty or nice.

“In fact,” John notes, “the rougher the weather the bigger the splash we could make.”

It didn’t take long for his fellow Kiwanians to warm up to the idea, and preparations for the pioneer Polar Bear Plunge began in earnest. At the outset, the club set two goals for the event: getting at least 100 people to participate, and raising more than US$5,000 for its service coffers. Money would be raised through pledges secured by participants and by sponsor donations. (A $50 minimum donation was required from each participant.)

ABOVE: A "mermaid" and the "Mona Lisa" join others in testing the waters of an ice-cold pond. RIGHT: A swimsuit-clad Polar Bear Plunge participant eases his way into the activity, much to the delight of the warmly dressed crowd in the background. TOP: An "elderly woman" does swimmingly well in the Northville Kiwanis Polar Plunge.

To make the event more attractive to potential participants and spectators, the club decided plungers would wear costumes rather than traditional swimsuits. 

The day of the event began with registration in the morning followed by a costume parade and contest to the icy pond where the countdown and plunge unfolded at noon. Among the plungers were clowns, hula dancers, elderly “ladies,” a mermaid, the Cat in the Hat, the Mona Lisa—or at least a very good reproduction—and a polar bear, though it is unclear whether the polar bear actually made it into the water.

Participants were rewarded afterward with a nice, warm shower at the health club, and a post-plunge party where prizes were given for best costume and most money raised.

Results of the inaugural event were mixed, John says. Though the number of spectators was sizable, only 19 people actually participated. Still, the event raised more than $12,500, which has the club fired up about the upcoming encore.

“We are pleased with what we were able to raise from the event,” John stresses. “We got a lot of good publicity for this event, and it created a lot of interest in the community, so I’m not sure why participation was so low. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this was our first event, and I’m confident we will have many more participants this year.”

One element sure to assist the club is its official Polar Bear Plunge Web site—www.nkpbplunge.com. In addition to general information about the upcoming event and photos from this past year’s plunge, the site includes details about various sponsorship programs, waiver and liability release forms, pledge forms, and a general letter for potential participants.

Ironically, the club’s first Polar Bear Plunge took place on one of the nicer days of the winter, with temperatures hovering near 45 degrees Fahrenheit and no clouds in sight. Water temperature, though, was right at freezing, cold enough to test the mettle of even a veteran polar bear.

Polar bear swims, generally a fixture of New Year’s celebrations, have been popular in North America since the early 1900s, according to The New York Times, with new ones popping up every year. Kiwanis clubs have not shied away from the tradition.

The Port Huron, Michigan, Kiwanis club, for example, has been staging its Polar Bear Plunge since 2000. From a handful of brave souls, the event has grown to include more than 100 participants who brave sub-freezing temperatures and chunks of floating ice to dive into Lake Huron. Club secretary Lyell A. Schneider says the event, which attracts hundreds of spectators, typically raises about $4,000.

Farther north, the Kiwanis Club of University, Anchorage, Alaska, sponsors several of its more rugged members who take part each year in the Seward Polar Bear Jumpoff Festival. The Kiwanians join hundreds of others who jump into Seward’s frigid Resurrection Bay to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

“The number of foolhardy members who volunteer to jump varies from year to year,” says club secretary Dick Kosonen. Pledge sheets are circulated among members and since starting its participation a dozen years ago, the club has raised more than $20,000. The club’s participation is not limited to plunging, though. In past years, club members have helped set up the dock area of the bay where the jump takes place, coordinated a silent auction, and have blown up the thousands of balloons that are released prior to the jump.