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11/03/2022 02:02 PMGrowing up in Chester, Leah Kisselbrack swam all summer in Cedar Lake. On Sunday, Nov. 6, Leah will be in the lake once again but the water will be a different temperature. That’s why the event is called the Polar Plunge.
Whatever the temperature, Leah is going to take the plunge.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” she says. “I am going to jump in.”
This is the third year of the Polar Plunge, an event designed not for a bracing dip but to raise money for local food banks.
The Polar Plunge has grown every year, not only with individual plungers but with teams from local business participating. Many participants are costumed.
“They wear boas and tutus,” Leah says. Last year Leah wore a superwoman outfit, though she has not decided what she will wear this year.
Leah would like people who wish to participate to contact her beforehand at her business, Leah’s Bella Vita, on Main Street in Deep River so she can arrange groups to run into the water together. Contributions may also be made in person or by mail at the beauty salon.
In addition to participants, Leah is eager for a large and enthusiastic crowd of spectators.
In first year, given worries about COVID, the Polar Plunge itself was virtual. Leah posted a video of her plunge on Facebook and encouraged other people to do the same.
With matching contributions, that first year’s event raised some $12,500 for food programs in Deep River, Chester, Killingworth, Haddam, East Haddam, and Middletown.
Last year, the total was $17,000.
This year Polar Plunge at Cedar Lake will feature something new: door prizes with merchandise donated by local businesses, including restaurant gift certificates, designer sunglasses, and a private yoga class.
Last year Leah’s husband, Patrick Fisher, kept going back and forth to their house bringing hot cocoa for a post-plunge drink. This year the cocoa is being donated as are portable toilets. Leah is still arranging for cookie donations.
Leah had the idea for the Polar Plunge during the early days of the COVID pandemic when she saw pictures from throughout the country of long lines for food banks.
“The lines of vehicles were crazy,” Leah recalls. “I thought our family was okay; we had food in the fridge and in the freezer but so many people needed help, so I came up with the idea of the Polar Plunge.”
Leah announced through Facebook that she would jump into Cedar Lake to raise money for food banks.
“I thought money was the best thing rather than food because then they could buy what they actually needed,” Leah says.
Through Facebook posts, Leah has received contributions from around the country, many from her Valley Regional High School classmates. Leah graduated from Valley Regional in 1999.
Although she has owned her beauty salon, Leah’s Bella Vita, for 11 years, Leah did not start out to be a hairdresser. She had planned to be a music teacher. She is a flute player and a graduate of Keene State College in New Hampshire. She has taught flute privately and has done substituting for school music classes including long-term assignments.
When people learn what she majored in, she says they often ask why she is now a hairdresser.
“I never thought it was such a big jump [from music],” she says. “I love working with people and I love the arts, and I just thought I would take that in a different direction.”
Being a hairdresser, Leah says, is about a lot more than doing hair. “Doing the hair is the easy part,” she says.
Leah has a t-shirt with a saying she particularly understands.
“It is something like Hairdresser Best Therapist, and the Best is crossed out for Cheapest.” She explains it is no secret that people confide in hairdressers. “They know they can tell me things in complete confidence,” she says.
When she started the Polar Plunge three years ago, Leah was not sure she would do it more than once. But the response every year has encouraged her. Now she has a large black folder crammed with paperwork relating to the event.
“I never would have imagined in a million years it would have gotten so big but
the need to support our neighbors with food insecurities isn’t going anywhere, so neither am I,” she says. “I’m taking it one year at a time, but I see the years flying by already.”
Polar Plunge
Sunday, Nov. 6 at 1 p.m.
Cedar Lake, West Main Street,
Chester
Contributions either in cash or checks, can be sent or dropped off at Leah’s business, Leah’s Bella Vita, 153B Main Street, Deep River, 06417. There is a slot in the door to drop contributions when the beauty salon is closed.
Donations will be accepted the day of the Plunge