The Norwich Guidon

The Norwich Guidon, student newspaper of Norwich University, is published twice monthly and has won numerous awards for excellence in its class.

Reporters, editors, and managers for The Norwich Guidon are students at the university who work under the guidance of a Communications faculty advisor. Student editors learn electronic pagination using state of the art computer equipment.

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In The News

March 6, 2003

NU students take the 'plunge' as part of Burlington event

By Dale Mauldin
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Stephen Hodgson was never more excited about jumping into the icy cold water of Lake Champlain, and he is looking forward to doing it again next year. "It was fun. We had a chance to do a lot of fun stuff," said the 19-year-old communications major from Derry, NH. "I'm definitely doing it next year."

The eighth annual Penguin Plunge happened Feb. 15 in Burlington, Vt. The event is sponsored by the Vermont Special Olympics, and one of their key fundraisers, and raises about one quarter of the funds for the year, according to Hannah Nelson, Events Manager of the Vermont Special Olympics.

This year the Penguin plunge raised over $200,000, not including corporate sponsors or corporate matches, according to Nelson. She is expecting the Plunge to ultimately raise more than $215,000 for the organization.

There was a lot of planning behind this event by volunteers and committee members, and it ran "like clockwork," according Nelson.

"We thought we may have had fewer plungers and spectators due to the freezing cold weather, but we were happily surprised to find that we actually had more people than ever," Nelson said.

In addition to the nearly 1,000 spectators and 630 plungers, there were 67 Norwich students giving their time and effort to help the event run smoothly. "We provided cadets and, this year, civilian students," said Eric Braman, former member of the commandant's staff.

"We really count on them to help make this a successful event," Nelson said of the Norwich involvement.

This was the second year Norwich students have assisted in the Penguin Plunge. They accepted the duties of traffic control, security, crowd control, and escorting groups of plungers to and from the staging tents to the water, Braman explained.

"This year, we got deeply involved in the traffic control," said Braman. There were nearly 200 more cars than there were spaces, and Norwich did an outstanding job of redirecting traffic to a location three blocks away, where participants could park and get on a shuttle bus.

The Burlington police felt that the students were doing such a good job that he let them take care of the job all by themselves, said Justin Fitzgerald, a 19-year-old sophomore communications major from Malden, Mass.

"He was there for 10 minutes; he just kept coming back once in awhile, then he just took off at the end of the day and let us do our stuff," Fitzgerald said.

Nelson praised the cadets for their work. "I don't know how this event would run without them." She looks forward to seeing more students help out next year, "I will continue to work with Eric Braman and Nicole Dedominico, (director of Volunteer Services), to make sure that the cadets come back every year."

"We really count on them to help make this a successful event," Nelson said.

According to Braman, there were six students who raised the minimum $175 to donate and took the plunge. Most of the students who went up to help jumped in after everything was over.

"It was kind of a last minute thing," said Hodgson. "We all stripped down to our boxers and jumped in with our BDU covers, so everybody knew we were from Norwich."

"It's definitely cold," said Fitzgerald, who added that "it's not the water that's the worst part, it's when you are running out. When you get out, then its freezing, like, my hair froze."

Braman was very pleased to see that so many students were willing to give their time and effort but is still looking forward to next year. "The key to next year is to improve participation amongst our student body and actually raising money," he said.

One of Braman's goals is to find "a minimum of 200 students who would raise $200 each."

"It's not hard to raise $200, especially since its going towards a good cause," said Hodgson.

Fitzgerald said students need more time to collect the money and that there wouldn't be as much of a problem raising money if people were informed earlier.

Braman agrees and said plans to begin "early in the fall, right after students arrive" are in the works, and he hopes to "get the word out" so that students can get donations from business and family members at home, because trying to get that much money in a small community that we are in would be very difficult, because we would basically be donating to each other."

It will take many motivated and "hardcore students," said Braman, to accomplish this goal, but in the end it is for a very worthy cause.

"I think that if more people help out next year, it will be really awesome," said Hodgson.