“I’m not even really a fan of water,” Mark White laughed nervously as he stood in the snow.
He looked out over Topsail Beach where two rocks covered in ice jutted out of the ocean.
“Even in the summertime, I don’t really care for it,” he said, and seemed to shudder at the thought of what he was about to do.
The Torbay resident was one of 71 people who jumped into the cold North Atlantic on New Year’s Day.
The temperature hovered around -8 C during the event, with a slight wind chill making it feel like -13.
“When there’s a cause involved like this, of course you’re going to come out and jump in,” White explained.
Everyone who participated in the second annual Polar Bear Swim made a donation to Bridges to Hope Food Aid Centre, and encouraged others who hear about what they did to do the same.
The event was organized by the Newfoundland and Labrador Beard & Moustache Club — the people behind the popular MerB’ys calendars — and Project Kindness.
Hasan Hai heads both organizations, and organized Tuesday’s dip in the ocean.
“You walk around and you hear the laughter — we’re all a bunch of idiots doing this,” Hai said with a laugh.
“No one does it because they think it’s a great idea, but it’s great fun doing it with a group.”
The main motivator was the cause.
The 71 participants filled a car with their non-perishable donations and raised $500, with more donations expected to come in over the next few days.
“The ‘giving season’ is kind of from November to Christmas, and then people don’t think that the need is there,” said Hai.
“The need is there year-round, and even though the holidays are sort of over now, we want to keep supporting (Bridges to Hope) year-round, encouraging people to make donations today and maybe make recurring donations that keep coming out every month because there’s people hungry in December (and) there’s people hungry in July. The need doesn’t change.”
One of the participants was doing her third polar bear swim.
Janet Harron of St. John’s said she has jumped into Lake Ontario and into the Atlantic Ocean off Nova Scotia.
She does it for the challenge.
“It’s interesting to see what your body can do — what it can take,” she said before taking the plunge.
“I think we’re so conditioned to think that we’ve got to bundle up against the cold, but I think sometimes we can actually take more cold than we think we can.”
While Hai urged people to support food banks year-round, he also said these kinds of community events are about one simple joy.
“It’s the vibe in the group around us here — it just brings people together,” he said with a smile.
“It doesn’t matter what it is. I mean, we could do a run through downtown, we could do a polar bear swim, we could do any kind of community event and the key thing is the people, how it brings people together, and the spirit generated from this.”
Twitter: @juanitamercer_
