City School District employees, administrators, teachers, and staff, along with first responders from Batavia, participated in a Special Olympics fundraiser on Friday -- a polar plunge -- outside of John Kennedy Intermediate School.
The participants dashed -- in freezing weather -- under the spray of a fire truck's hose and got soaked.
The event raised $8,700 for Special Olympics.
Kelly Ligozio, senior development director for Special Olympics in Western New York, said the Buffalo polar plunge was last week and typically honors the school in Western New York that raised the most money for Special Olympics. But Ligozio said she told the director, who has been in the position for 23 years, that they had to wait for Batavia's event before naming a winner. The director wanted to maintain tradition, but Ligozio said the agency owed it to Batavia to wait because Batavia was the only school district to continue to hold the fundraising event during the pandemic.
So, they waited.
And Batavia won. Special Olympics will host an ice cream social at John Kennedy sometime this year and the school's colors will be part of the Polar Plunge sweatshirt next year.
"It's amazing," Ligozio said. "What's amazing about it is how they've broadened it to include all the schools in the district so all the different schools can participate."
