The polar plunge is usually thought of as a chilling experience for students, but this year’s event felt quite different.

Sponsored every year in conjunction with Greek Week, the polar plunge took place on Friday. It doubled as a fun event for students as well as a fundraiser for the Special Olympics.

For the past 17 years, the Polar Bear Plunge has taken place at Lake LaVerne. This year, however, was the first time it happened at the State Gym pool.

“The other day we were told we couldn’t have it outside at Lake LaVerne because of safety reasons. So we decided bring it indoors so that we could still have the plunge,” said Casey Wales, co-chairwoman of Polar Bear Plunge.

Co-chairman Benny Rohloff said moving the Polar Bear Plunge to the pool took some of the charm out of it.  It was balmy instead of the typical cold, but having the event in State Gym helped increase participation.

Despite the change in location, this year’s event had more participation and raised more money than ever before. Hal Pittman, president and CEO of Special Olympics Iowa who was there to watch the participants jump in, said that 2,502 participants took the plunge, and more than $150,000 were raised to directly benefit participants of the Special Olympics.

Kim Lively, a veteran athlete of Special Olympics Iowa, gave the welcoming speech to the participants. She said it was great to see all the students involved.

To participate, each person must raise an entry amount of $50. If participants raised more than $50, prizes such as sunglasses and sweatshirts were awarded.

In January, greek chapters from around campus were asked to send representatives to be the morale captains, called posse leaders, for their chapters by encouraging participants to raise money.

“It was a lot of the posse leaders from the chapters that kept the fundraising going strong,” Wales said.

In the future, Rohlff said they would like to get more involvement from outside the greek community.

“We’ve tried to slowly expand a little bit outside of the greek community and try and get others involved,” Rohlff said. “It’s definitely something we are looking to do in the future.”

Despite the unplanned venue change, the event was still successful in participation and raising money for Special Olympics Iowa.

“It was really good to be able to help the kids in a fun way like this,” said participant Nicolas Stumbo.