Standing around an ice-cold pool, supporters of the Special Olympics braced themselves to take the plunge on Saturday.
An aboveground pool outside the Student Recreation Complex played host to The Polar Plunge, an event organized by the ASU Police Department and the Special Olympics as a fundraiser for Special Olympics Arizona.
Twenty participants, including students, police officers and other community members, jumped into the 4-foot-deep pool, which got some help cooling down from 12 pounds of ice.
The participants donated at least $25 to the Special Olympics, and the event brought in a total of $2,540 for the organization, ASU Police Officer Earl Rosencrantz said.
The event was ‘70s themed, so many people came wearing afros, go-go boots and paisley shirts, jumping into the water fully clothed.
Rosencrantz, who serves as the ASU Police Department’s liaison for the Special Olympics, created the idea for the event.
He decided on a Polar Plunge because it seemed appropriate for the time of year, and he thought it would attract a lot of attention.
“I figured it would be something that crazy college kids would want to do,” he said.
Rosencrantz personally donated $500 and spent the night before doing hourly dives with three other people to try and entice more people to sign up for the event the following morning.
Though he was hoping for more people to sign up, he believed they received a good amount of donations considering the lack of advertising for the event.
“We had only been planning it for about three weeks, so it was hard to get the word out,” he said.
Special Olympics Arizona is the local chapter of the Special Olympics that began in 1975. It was created as a way to allow people with intellectual disabilities the chance to participate in physical competition.
Besides the Polar Plunge, which is now planned to be an annual event, ASU Police also participates in the Torch Run, an annual charity run for the Special Olympics that happens each spring.
Tammy Garstka, the director of Campus Recreation at ASU, helped organize the event by working with Leslie’s Swimming Pool Supplies, which donated the aboveground pool.
She said the event organizers were originally going to use the SRC pool, but it was too big to cool down.
As a mother of a Special Olympics athlete, Garstka was supportive of the event and donated $100. However, she didn’t participate in the plunge because she feared the cold water.
Instead she dared her friend, ASU’s Assistant Chief of Police Allen Clark, to dive in for her.
“I told him, ‘It’s for my son, so you better do it,’” she said.
Clark, wearing his police uniform, braved the water four times for Garstka’s son. He also had many of his friends pledge for him to dive and raised a total of $500 for the charity event.
Clark only had one thing to say about his multiple dives: “It’s very, very cold.”
Reach the reporter at danielle.legler@asu.edu
