Take a Dip in Cayuga Lake to Raise Money for the Special Olympics

Jack Eves: [00:00:00] X101 Always Classic, Good morning, Jack Eves here in the studio for another edition of Meet Cortland County and joining me in the studio for this meet Cortland County is Lieutenant Barry Banfield and Lieutenant Mary Osero, both of the Ithaca Police Department, as well as Public Information Officer for the New York State Police Trooper Aga Tinker.

And you guys are all gonna be talking about a big upcoming event that’s happening next Saturday which is the 13th annual Ithaca Polar Plunge. How are you guys doing this morning?

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Pretty good. Good to be here.

Lieutenant Mary Osero: I’m doing great. Thanks for asking.

Jack Eves: Oh yeah, great Polar Plunge coming up you know, thankfully it’s getting a little bit warmer, but, Lieutenant Banfield, you wanna give us an overview of what the Polar plunge is for someone who might not be familiar with it?

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Yeah, sure. We started doing it at Taughannock Pakr in, just outside Ithaca in 2014. That was the first time and it’s kind of been the same ever since, just gotten bigger. We’ve got, everybody comes together in the park and we jump in the lake and then we do it to raise funds and awareness for the Special Olympics.

And the, the rule [00:01:00] is basically you have to raise 25 bucks to be able to jump in. ’cause you’d be surprised how many people just want to jump in just ’cause and honestly, it sounds like a terrible idea if you’ve never done it. But when you jump in the water and that covers your head and you’re frozen.

You know, it is, the most rejuvenating feeling and, the first time you do,

Jack Eves: It’s like a jolt of energy probably.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: It really is. You come out and then you can like, take on the world, you know ? And, and then you just shake it off and, and usually when I do it, we do it in uniform with the Ithaca Police.

We full uniform without the belt obviously we jump in there and then I just leave everything on freezing cold after that point. Just ’cause it’s, it feels good and, and as you say, like when it’s nice out. It’s actually not the greatest because you’ve got cold water feels colder. So I kind of pray for snow, but, we raise a lot of money for the athletes doing this and we do it with the athletes.

And I think that’s the coolest part for me, Is that we do this, we get to hang out with the athletes all day leading up to it and as we go in and when we have our, [00:02:00] we have a, what’s called the plunge cup, which all law enforcement in the area raises as much money as they can.

They compete with each other.

Jack Eves: Some friendly competition for that.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Absolutely. First responders too, so not just law enforcement, Fire, EMS and the winner of that, whoever raises the most gets this plunge cup, and it means they also get to take the torch in the flame of hope that brings in all the games for Special Olympics.

They get to carry that into the water as well with the athlete and so you’re vying for that and then you get to do that all the athletes go in with, uh, law enforcement, first responders into the water with the flame and it’s a whole big ordeal and then we get outta there, try to warm up a little bit, and everybody else jumps in and it actually turns into a hell of a party.

But we have pizza, we have music, we have coffee, trying to get some hot chocolate cause that’s always a big hit, but it’s a party and then you jump in the lake.

Jack Eves: No. Yeah and like to add onto it, you know, it’s raising funds for the New York Special Olympics. You know, that’s a very important thing for, those athletes.

And, you know, it’s a great opportunity for them too, to meet local law enforcement and really a great community organization. How many, people are you expecting hopefully, to join you this [00:03:00] year ?

Lieutenant Mary Osero: So last year we had 45 teams and 550 participants. Like every year we always wanna surpass those numbers. So I’m hoping we get over 550 this year.

Maybe 600, 700 would be a great goal. And luckily the lake is super big, so it can accommodate yes, as many participants as, as we get.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: And it only takes $500 a year to fund an athlete’s activities so the whole thing with Special Olympics is not only is it games and, and getting together. For a lot of athletes, it’s the only time that they can be social.

They get to get out. Sometimes they, they live in a group home, they get out and this is it for socialization. So we get to do that and that $500 also covers medical things, you know, dentistry, doctors or visits, stuff like that they wouldn’t normally get.

Jack Eves: It goes a very long way for ’em, too.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Absolutely so every, like, literally every dollar counts, you know, it’s, it’s a huge deal.

So this is a big fundraiser for us to get our local athletes money, so that’s why we try to make a big deal of it every year.

Jack Eves: No, definitely.

Aga Tinker: And it’s [00:04:00] like a big bonding, it’s a big bonding thing too, like between us as law enforcement going in there. As one unit into that cold water and then you’ve also bonding with all the athletes that, that are there and they see us doing it and they see us supporting them, which makes them like super excited every time they see us to do that kind of stuff.

Jack Eves: That’s great and you know, registration for that, polar plunge starts at 9:30. Next Saturday morning, right ?

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Yep. It starts, at 9:30 and we actually have a pre-registration event at Texas Roadhouse, downtown Ithaca the night before. So that’ll be from 3:00 to 7:00 PM and you can go down there, register there, you can get your sweatshirt.

If you raised enough for a sweatshirt, you raise $125, you get a free sweatshirt. It’s really good this year. It’s, I think it’s gray with a polar bear on it, if I remember right.

Jack Eves: Everyone loves a polar bear.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Yeah and it’s a, it’s a real looking polar bear. So you’re like, Ooh, that’s not a cartoon. You know, that’s,

Jack Eves: That’s legit

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: That is legit and, but they’re also for Texas Roadhouse, they’re also putting, 10% of all their sales when you come in to, to register and you, so you wanna get something to go or you wanna eat there. [00:05:00] They’re also donating money. To the plunge for that. So we really encourage the pre-registration just because it gets pretty hectic that morning.

There’s a ton of people in there. We have a big tent and it’s nice and warm, but it’s. A lot of people. So if you wanna avoid that, get your stuff early and just go plunge, that’s the way to do it.

Jack Eves: Exactly and the plunge is right at noon too, right ?

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Yeah. Oh, and we, follow a timeline to the tee. It’s like a train operation.

We got there, you know, it’s noon, we’re going in,

Jack Eves: So noon going in, then going out, and then it’ll be the fun party afterwards. Uh, is there anything else you guys would like to add ?

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: I don’t think so. I think, you know, if, if you wanna just go log on and, or you can just Google search, you know, the, for our website too, Ithaca Police is the one you wanna donate to.

We got team IPD. Right ? And you wanna get there and, and give us a leg up. We’d appreciate it.

Aga Tinker: There are other teams that are on there that you can…

Jack Eves: Yes, I, I’ll, I’ll also add into the defense for the other teams. There are other teams too, so you know, if you want to support not just the Ithaca Police but other teams, you can go right ahead and just simply searching for that Ithaca Polar Plunge.

That’s at 1748 [00:06:00] Tecan Boulevard in Truman’s Berg guys, thank you so much for coming in. Always appreciate it.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Hey, yeah, thanks for having us. In all seriousness, though, we would prefer everybody gets their own team and gets a ton of people on there and not just supports us, but the more people that go out there, the more we can do so.

Jack Eves: Yes. And really help make a difference for those.

Lieutenant Barry Banfield: Yeah. And, and you’re integral in our being able to get that message out. So thank you so much for, for taking your time to humor us.

Jack Eves: Of course. Yeah. Always great to have you guys in the studio for X101 I’m Jack Eves.