Everyone has their own strategy for the Connellsville Polar Plunge on New Year’s Day.
For Dale Kooser and Geoffrey Bittner, it’s get in and get out.
“My rule, though, is it doesn’t count if you don’t dunk your head. You’ve got to go underwater,” Bittner said, decked out head-to-toe in a bald eagle American flag romper with matching cape. “I’ve done it 10 of the last 12 years. It makes us unique, and it’s a great way to ring in the New Year.”
Bittner was joined by a few hundred other “polar bears,” many of whom — including Kooser — are members of the Connellsville Polar Bear Club. Their annual plunge into the Youghiogheny River is accompanied by a food drive to help stock the shelves at the Connellsville Area Community Ministries.
“I’ve been doing this for 19 years,” said Kooser, 77 of Connellsville, who added the Thursday-morning temperature, hovering in the upper teens, is hardly the worst he’s faced.
“I’ve seen it at zero before,” he said with a laugh.
Kaitan Smiley of Connellsville brought his family and brother with him, although not everyone was plunging.
“This will be my second time,” Smiley said. “I coach wrestling at Norwin, and I have a lot of athletes who do cold plunges, so I thought it was worth a shot.”
Smiley’s son Zaine, 7, said he was planning to jump in this year, after just dipping his toes in 2025. As for daughter Alivia, 5, she was planning to stay ashore.
Rosemarie Homer of Dunbar, a 15-year veteran of the event, was at the river’s edge a few minutes before the plunge testing the thickness of the ice.
“I wish they’d have broken up some of the ice over here where the sun is shining,” she said. “It’s going to be awfully cold getting into the river in the shade.”
Homer, who works as a nurse, said she views the plunge as a literal cleansing.
“I tell my patients I’m washing off the old year and bringing in the new one,” she said.
For Liliana Ciceretti, 13, of Connellsville and Aubrey Santamaria, 15, of Greensburg, survival was the only strategy. The two first-timers were already down to t-shirts and swimsuit bottoms with several minutes to go before the plunge.
Kooser would refer to that as a rookie mistake.
“I can’t feel my legs, and my toes are frozen,” Santamaria said.
But with warming tents just a few feet away, multiple fires to stand around and hot chocolate from the community ministries volunteers, their survival was all but assured.
“I really love seeing the community come together, plus it helps the food bank,” Homer said.
