Polar Plunge raises more than $18,000

WASILLA — Thanks to 59 plungers and more than twice that many donors and sponsors, the Mat-Su Sertoma Club was able to raise more than $18,000 for local charities, focusing on hearing health.

Most who took the plunge into an icy rectangle of water carved out just behind the Palmer Elks Club on Finger Lake, donned costumes.

Four of the contestants were foreign students attending local high schools as part of an international Rotary Club exchange.

Among them were Leonardo Souza, from Brazil, Tasha Dutoit, from South Africa, who dressed up as princesses, Souza dressing up appropriately as Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen”.

“It was refreshing; the cold was not that bad,” Souza said, adding that the real terror came when his costume inhibited his resurfacing. “The cape came off my head — that was the scary part.”

“It was really cold but really good,” Dutoit said. “It was exciting, fun, scary. There’s things under your feet like algae or something. I’ve never done anything this cold in my life.”

Souza, 16, is a student at Colony High School, who will be staying until July and Dutoit, 17, is a Palmer High student staying through December.

Austria’s Zoe Johannsen, who attends East High in Anchorage, also as part of the Rotary program, plunged as Cinderella.

“It wasn’t that bad; you’d think it’d be worse,” she said. “You hit the water and think, ‘Oh my God, what is going on?’”

Those newbies and the others got plenty of advice from Jerry Famolari, a multiple gold medal winner in the Special Olympics and nine-year veteran of the plunge, who just happened to be celebrating a birthday on Saturday.

Dressed as a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, Famolari executed his game plan perfectly.

“If you jump farther you can get closer to the middle to be out quicker,” Famolari said. “It’s easy to do it that way, then easy to get out.”

The Mat-Su Sertoma Club will hold its regular meeting Thursday evening with guest speaker Ann Curry, Director of the Alaska State School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

For more information on the Sertoma Club, visit matsuhearing.org.