The craziness continues

It’s the fundraiser the keeps on growing.

Students from SUNY-Stony Brook and LIU-C.W. Post, along with a group of wounded war veterans, are some of the new adventurers who plan to plunge into the icy Atlantic along with thousands of others at the 13th annual Polar Bear Splash on Sunday at Riverside Boulevard beach, just hours before the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints meet in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami.

Some 30 Stony Brook students — cheerleaders and band and dance team members — will take part in the yearly fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, led by their school mascot, Wolfie, who has become a regular at the event.

“It spread like wildfire,” Wolfie, who declined to give his real name in order to maintain his anonymity, said of telling his fellow students about the event. “The band was especially interested because they’re all about community and helping out, and they just love to have a good time. Once I told them about jumping into the ocean when it’s 10 degrees outside, they were 100 percent down for it.”

The mascot, who acknowledged that he is a Stony Brook senior, has taken the plunge each year since 2006, a few years after a friend’s son was diagnosed with cancer but benefited from Make-A-Wish, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Stony Brook has lately focused on outreach projects like local fairs, festivals and charitable walks, and Wolfie made Andrea Lebedinski, the school’s coordinator of merchandise and branding, aware of the Splash, which is run by the Long Beach Polar Bear Club. “He said since we do all this outreach already, let’s make sure we get this on the schedule,” Lebedinski recalled. “We made it a point to contact the organizer.”

That would be Peter Meyers, who co-founded the club with Kevin McCarthy. Meyers and McCarthy believe that more than 5,000 people will sign waivers and dash into the water on Sunday, egged on by 20,000 or more spectators. “It gets bigger every year,” Meyers said.