Something that has become a tradition in my friend group is doing the Dunleavy's Polar Bear Plunge on Sullivan's Island.
The Polar Bear Plunge is held to raise money for the Special Olympics here in the Charleston area. For the Special Olympics, people managed to raise over $13,000 to all help the children and adults in the area that join in on the fun! This year was my third year being a part of it and we got to have two more friends join us! Sadly, it was also the coldest year to be doing it, which I ended up not going in the water because I couldn't afford to get sick.
The group that I joined three years ago are known as the "Shineey Happy People," and they are known by many people from all over! We all paint ourselves in yellow paint, then sprinkle gold and silver sparkles all over our body so it sticks to the paint. Though this year was too cold to go topless, we all had bright yellow shirts on that we painted so the sparkles would still stay on us.
This year, it was 30 degrees outside, but a real feel of 23 degrees. That number automatically lead hundreds of people to not jump in the water. The previous years it has been in the 50's, so it wasn't too bad to jump in. I only say that because it doesn't count until you put your whole head under the water. There were maybe 150 people that went in the water this year, and even then, that's a lot for it being in the 30's in South Carolina.
Of the group I am in, there are usually 20 people roughly that go in the water, but this year we only had 3 people –– a major disappointment to people that follow us each year. One of the people being a newcomer into the group was going to be plunging into the new year for a fresh start. She was the only girl in the group to partake and represented all girls as a whole for this group of people.
The greatest part about the Polar Bear Plunge is watching everyone freak out as they run into the water because you stand freezing at a start line for about 20 minutes. The plunge starts at 1 p.m. and for those 20 minutes before you run in, groups go in front of the start line and hype everyone up.
Then once most people get knee deep into the water, you just see everyone start to dive further that way they can quickly get in and out. The first year I did it, my best friends brother proposed as we were running, and the first person to hug them and say congratulations was a guy in a Godzilla costume. That is one awesome way to bring in the new year! If a Polar Bear Plunge isn't something you have done yet, go out and try it to bring in 2019!
