Why would anyone want to jump into a frozen pond during the dead of winter? The brothers of Delta Sigma Phi have the answer, it’s to raise money for their Philanthropy the Alzheimer’s association. “We raised approximately $840” says the Philanthropy chair Luke Falke. The Polar Plunge was initially held by the Pharmacy Council in January of 1999. The Pharmacy Councils’ Polar Plunge was simply hanging out in a hot tub in front of Lima hall. “I would have liked to have gone, it’s just that it was January and all, I just wasn’t quite ready for bathing suit season yet” said Tally Cregg in the 1999 issue of Northern Review. Delta Sigma Phi is a social fraternity at Ohio Northern University who took up the mantle of hosting the Polar Plunge in 2012 and has hosted the event for the past 9 years.
The Delta Sigma Phi fraternity has a long standing history on the ONU campus that dates back to 1920. This year’s Polar Plunge was held on Feb. 2, 2022, from 9 a.m. to noon at the fraternity circle pond. The event was open and welcoming to all those who chose to participate. This year not only did students from ONU participate but an Ada Highschool student took the plunge as well. EMT’s were called in to ensure that no one was hurt during the event. In addition, even though there was no one in need of rescue this provided them the chance to practice their underwater rescue drills. Ethan Brown, a brother who started at ONU 5 years ago, praised the event saying that “there are more accountable people running the event now than there were when he first started attending it.” This was shown during the process of setting up the event and the way that Luke Falke ensured that all the necessary precautions were set up to ensure a safe and smoothly run event.