2022 Super Plunge

 

September 14, 2021, I got an email from Sharon Perfetti, an employee at SOMD who runs the Super Plunge. Sharon sent me an email asking me if I would like to be a super plunger. 

A super plunger is someone that plunges in the water every hour for 24 hours straight. At first I didn’t know whether I wanted to plunge in the cold water at all, much less 24 times. but I finally decided a few weeks after that I would accept the offer, and become a Super Plunge Ambassador. Sharon helped me find a plunge partner, and a few days later she emailed me with my partner's name! Her name was Maddie Clemens, Maddie and I set up a zoom to meet and get to know each other. I enjoyed getting to meet her via zoom. 

There was a lot of preparation and fundraising and I was still super nervous about plunging into cold water, Sharon reached out to me to share that my super plunge partner had raised enough money, we were ready to Plunge but I didn’t know if I was ready for the full 24 hours. I didn’t know what I wanted to do because I had never even plunged before.  After talking about it with my super plunge partner, I got many opinions on what I should do… My final decision came to me a few days before, 24 hours was a lot but I was going to do it!

Each hour had a new theme, so this was a lot of preparing to get 24 costumes together! The themes were: super plunge shirts, crazy hats, the Jimmy plunge, favorite inflatables, fire, military, police theme, super hero, hawaiian, ST. Patricks Day green, glow up, mustache, and my personal favorite was the zombie and princess plunge. 

There were some personal sponsors that gave us something to wear during some of the plunge hours. A few of those sponsors were Aerotek, WBAL-TV, Ravens, Wawa, Sunrise Safety, and Carnival. So once I got everything packed up, I headed to Sandy Point State Park!

The day of the plunge was here, I woke up at 6 am to get up and make sure I had everything ready. We left my house and arrived at Sandy Point at 8:30 a.m. We put all my bags on the golf cart and they took it to the tent to unload everything. While they loaded the cart, me and my plunge partner walked to the tent and got checked in. After that we were told we needed to get our super plunge shirts on and get ready for pictures and our first plunge! We got our pictures done, and then we went outside and lined up for the plunge, shortly afterwards a boat came up and delivered the torch which the police officer carefully took and together he and  SOMD athlete, Amanda Moore carried it to light the Flame of Hope. Then we got a countdown and then when we got to zero, we ran in the water. OMG!!! The water was so cold. I went to my hips. Then ran back out of the water. Each time I went to a different length. Sometimes I went to my ankles, or knees or dunked myself into the water. I did the staff plunge right after I went in with my plunge partner for our normal Plunge. They kept us busy in the tent with music and socializing with other Super Plungers. We sang along to the songs that they played. 

I was able to meet some pretty awesome people! The SOMD staff like Maddi, Claire, Jessie, Kira, Kayla, and Alexa, as well as some other amazing staff members. They were so much fun to be around and getting to meet them in person was so cool. I finally met some pretty amazing athletes in person too, like Monique, David, Catherine, Sam, Erica, Annu, and the bingo world/carnival group! Meeting athletes that I have not met in person yet was great, like Catherine, she and I played bocce a few times, it was fun to play cornhole together and later on that night Elaina, Sam and Catherine and I all played!. There was more dancing and singing along with each other, oh one of my favorite parts, the food… I gotta tell you I love food! The vendors that served us lunch, dinner, and breakfast. The lunch was a chicken wrap and cookies and a few other foods. Then for dinner there were many options. For breakfast there were eggs, potatoes, and homemade pop tarts. The food was delicious. We even got massages, the lady that did mine did a great job, It felt good to get a massage. 

I truly was the life of the party in the Super Plunge tent. I had so much energy the entire time and probably because I was socializing with everyone. I kept getting asked how I had this much energy. I was tired through part of it. Many pictures were taken and great conversations were had. By The end of the plunge at 9 a.m, everyone was tired and ready to go. I left the plunge and my mom and sister and I went to the mall, I was so exhausted. I got home around 2:30 p.m. and slept for 8 hours straight, then made dinner for myself and had a needed shower. 

All together I am so happy that I DID the plunge. Great experience!!! It was really tough mentally, but I am so proud of doing it because I never thought I could! It was mentally exhausting, but I persevered!