Vince Vaughn, Lady Gaga Take Part In Polar Plunge
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Thousands of people took a dip in icy Lake Michigan at North Avenue Beach Sunday morning, including celebrities Vince Vaughn and Lady Gaga, reports WBBM's Steve Miller.
Vaughn was in the first wave and he wore a Chicago Blackhawks jersey into the lake.
Vaughn told WBBM it was "fantastic" after coming out of the water.
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Lady Gaga was in the second wave to enter the lake. She was wearing a Chicago Fire T-shirt and went in with the cast of the Chicago Fire TV show, including her fiancé Taylor Kinney.
One of the original organizers of the Polar Plunge, Pam Munizzi, was thinking about that first time back in 2000 when one of the celebrities who did the jump that year was Minnie Minoso.
"The truth be known Minnie Minoso came to our first Polar Plunge," Munizzi. "The Chicago White Sox was very supportive and still are very supportive of us and they wanted to send one of their ambassadors. It was a day kind of like today, rather brisk, and Minnie Minoso came out in the huge fur coat and he looked like he wanted to kill the White Sox for sending him to this frozen tundra, but he was wonderful, he greeted everybody. We have very fond memories of Minnie and very sad for his loss. He was a wonderful guy and we appreciate all he did for us."
That first year the Polar Plunge raised $27,000 for Special Olympics and about 40 people took part. This year more than 4,500 plungers raised more than $1 million.
