Stoneboat Polar Plunge

Sheboygan, Wisconsin is known to us Michganders as the place that breaks the winter storms for us before they head across Lake Michigan to our western shores. Which makes the Stoneboat fundraiser one that truly earns my respect for those kuh-ray-zee editors: On New Year’s Day, they will be participating in the Polar Bear Plunge. For those of you in warmer climates who may not be aware of what this entails – imagine filling your bathtub with ice water, strip down to next to nothing… Enough said, right? Feeling the chill already?

The folks at Stoneboat will be plunging into frigid Lake Michigan, or at least going in as deep as their fundraising demands. Which is where you come in: The more money Stoneboat raises before the January 1 plunge, the further they will submerge themselves into the water. Here’s their formula of how much and how deep they’ll go:

$50 knees
$100 mid-thighs
$150 hips
$200 belly buttons
$250 chests
$300 shoulders

In addition, while they’ll take donations in any amount, they are offering the following premiums to donors:

$10 a handmade Stoneboat bookmark
$20 a Stoneboat t-shirt
$50 a one-year subscription to Stoneboat and a poem of your choice (the first 10 lines, or the whole poem if it is 10 lines or less) will be read in the water/at the event*

The asterisk, fairly enough, ensures that no one succumb to hypothermia: “*We will try to read as many poems in the water as possible, and we’ll ensure that all selections are read at the event.”

So if you’re still looking for a post-holiday gift for someone, I’d say the subscription and having the poem read (and recorded) at this event would be a great way to head on in to 2015. Get those Stoneboaters up to their shoulders; really, I think this is one freeze they’d appreciate!