A 'refreshing' fundraiser:
Icy plunge into Mill River raises awareness, money to fight global warming

This article appeared in the Monday, Dec. 10 2007 issue of the Daily Hampshire Gazette:

Members of the Amherst Regional High School swim team were among the first of about 30 brave souls to take a dip in Cushman Brook in North Amherst Saturday in what organizers termed the first "Puffer's Polar," part of a nationwide "Polar Bear Plunge" to raise awareness of climate change. The layer of ice on Puffer's Pond was so thick that organizers moved the event upstream to this tributary where the surface was more easily broken. Photo by Kevin Gutting

"Once you jump in it's not so bad," he said afterwards. "It was wonderful. We had a great sense of solidarity."

He was among 30 people who took the plunge. About half were members of the Amherst Regional High School swim teams, and many of the others were, like Elbow, members of Grace Episcopal Church.

"We're willing to go to any lengths to stop global warming," said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, a priest associate at Grace Church, to a crowd of over 60 beforehand. "The ice caps are melting, the tundra is thawing, and we need to address it quickly."

The plan was to jump into Puffer's Pond, but it was frozen after a colder-than-normal week. So the group walked a short distance to Cushman Brook.

The air temperature had reached the upper 30s, but the water was so cold that few of the plungers stayed in more than a few seconds. To highlight the day-at-the-beach atmosphere, the Rev. Robert Hirschfeld, rector of Grace Church, wore sunglasses and brought along a beach ball.

After his plunge, he said he tried not to think about it too much beforehand. "It helps to have all the people," he said. "You can't do it alone."

The event raised money for the Center for Ecological Technology. Tomasin Whitaker of the group's Northampton office said she prepared for her plunge by taking 30-second cold showers.

"I enjoyed it," said ARHS swimmer Luke Plummer. "It's refreshing."

It was a fun event with a serious point, said Bullitt-Jonas. She compared the plunge to a full-immersion baptism.

"Now we're out of the water and good to go for the next step of the movement," she said.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," said Elbow.