A team of eight hardy souls led by Des Plaines Mayor Matt Bogusz rushed into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan Sunday as part of Chicago’s annual Polar Plunge, a fundraiser for Special Olympics.
Near northwest suburban residents also took part in a polar plunge event held Sunday at Twin Lakes in Palatine.
But the Des Plaines group moved to Chicago after the City Council there voted to cancel its first Penguin Plunge, which had been scheduled to take place at Lake Opeka on the last day of February.
At a City Council meeting less than two weeks before the planned event, Ald. James Brookman, 5th, expressed concerns about safety and liability. The majority of the council followed his lead and agreed that allowing participants to plunge into freezing water was too risky. As a result, the event was canceled.
Though Bogusz wasn’t able to convince the roughly 40 people who planned to participate in the Des Plaines’ plunge to follow him to Chicago, the team still managed to raise nearly $1,800 for Special Olympics as of Monday morning, he said.
After emerging from the lake soaked, Bogusz said the plunge was “shocking” but something he would definitely do again next year.
When asked if he would try to hold the event in Des Plaines again, Bogusz said, “maybe.”
He said his goal is to increase the volume and quality of the events held in Des Plaines – an effort he thinks the community supports.
Linda Wojcik, chair of Des Plaines’ special events commission, also followed the mayor to Chicago for the event. Wojcik said Chicago organizers take safety precautions and the city had similar plans.
“We had all the safety in place,” she said. “We had everything ready to go.”
Bogusz, mayor secretary Nancy Peterson, Wojcik and five other Des Plaines residents on his team joined the more than 4,500 who took part in the Polar Plunge – a group that included celebrities Vince Vaughn and Lady Gaga.
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Leslie Wester, who participated in Sunday’s event as part of the Des Plaines team, said she and her husband, Jamie, were both upset when they heard of the decision to cancel the plunge.
The couple moved to Des Plaines from Chicago about two years ago, and Wester said she was looking forward to the date.
“This was the perfect event to build up Des Plaines,” Wester said of the plunge.
Jim Jones, cub master of Cub Scout Pack 14 at Forest Elementary School, who also participated in Chicago on Sunday, said he had planned to use the Penguin Plunge at Lake Opeka as a recruiting event for the Cub Scouts.
The decision to cancel “was kind of disappointing because nobody wants to come to Lake Michigan,” Jones said.
In Palatine, organizers said 328 participated in a plunge that raised more than $109,000 for Special Olympics, according to the event website.