Schools

HPHS Polar Plungers Raise $18K for Special Olympics (PHOTOS)

When the lake was deemed too dangerous due to shards of ice, the plungers leapt into pools of freezing cold water in the parking lot, instead. Check out photos of their dip, including an appearance from Principal Swanson.

The point of a Polar Plunge is that it's going to be very, very cold. 

But this year, it was a bit too cold to go jump in the lake earlier this month at a Special Olympics Polar Plunge fundraiser in Lake Bluff. The shards of ice floating in the lake were deemed too dangerous for plunging. So, instead, the Highland Park High School Super Splashers, as the HPHS team was dubbed, jumped into freezing cold water in pools set up in a parking lot.

The 42 plungers were made up of Rotary Interact students and peer mentors, as well as a few others. They raised $18,212 for the Special Olympics, which was the 6th highest out of the 873 teams that participated, according to Melissa Zientara, Rotary Interact Club sponsor and peer mentoring teacher. 

Zientara raised $8,500 of that in honor of former student Rohan Malempati, an avid Rotary club officer, who died last month at the age of 17. You can read more about Rohan here.

The polar plunge participants are all listed below. 

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The plungers were:

Angela Aguero, Daria Bach, Liz Bautista, Amy Chen, Jessica Citronberg, Diana Cruz, Caleb Cunningham, Ethan Cutler, Kenzie Ellis, Victoria Fishman, Emma Fleisher, Jeremy Frisch, Drew Gaines, Maria Elena Garcia, Robin Kass, Elyssa Kaufman, Jake Kirsch, Sam Kraft, Rebecca Lehman, Mr. Davy Lindquist, Rocio Lopez, David Max, Jared Much, Matt Murphy (Lisa Murphy's son), Reilly Negronida, Elsie Ocampo, Sloan Paschen, Jacob Resnick, Mr. Pat Sassen, Sydney Schwab, Rachel Silverman, Abby Stone, Mr. Brad Swanson, Becca Sultan, Kevin Toledo, Xochi Toledo,  Ben Udell, Madeleine Van Overbeek, Jackie Zamudio, Brian Zientara, Melissa Zientara, and Fiona Zhang.     

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