Polar Bear Club's New Year's Day Polar Dip

Total Raised: $28,146.00

Date: January 1, 2010, 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Riegelmann Boardwalk, Coney Island, NY
Click here for directions

Camp Sunshine is pleased to have the opportunity to partner with the Coney Island Polar Bear Club for their 2010 Polar Dip. We believe that together we can send many more children with life-threatening illnesses and their families from New York to our one-of-a-kind retreat in Maine.

Raise $100 and you will receive an official "I DID IT!" event long-sleeve t-shirt and be entered into a drawing to win 2 Air Tran tickets to anywhere in the US or Caribbean.

Last year, the Coney Island Polar Dip raised $25,000 for Camp Sunshine! With the strength of a world renowned event such as the Coney Island New Year’s Day Polar Dip and the resources of Camp Sunshine, it is our goal to raise in excess of $30,000 in 2010. That is enough to send more than 20 New York families to Camp Sunshine.

Take the plunge with Planet Green and Martin Strel, four-time world record holding endurance swimmer and star of the documentary film Big River Man airing on Planet Green Saturday, January 9 at 10pm ET.

Camp Sunshine and the Coney Island Polar Dip have also teamed up with New York Cares Coat Drive and the event marks the final opportunity to support the New York Cares Coat Drive by donating a grntly used coat on the boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue. Plungers will be freezin for a reason but other New Yorkers shouldn't be left out in the cold.

Why a New York based event for a camp in Maine?

Since the opening of our year-round campus in 2001, more ill children and their families have come from New York than any other state in the nation. In 2008, 158 families from New York participated in our program. Sadly, even with multiple sessions being added annually at Camp Sunshine, there are still many more children from New York being newly diagnosed each year.

Our program continues to be recommended by the following New York treatment centers: Mount Sinai Medical Center, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Schneider's Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York University Medical Center, Brooklyn Hospital Center, Westchester Medical Center,  Stony Brook Medical Center, and numerous others.