A first-time event is coming to Thompson in the New Year, with help from Special Olympics Manitoba and the Manitoba Law Enforcement Torch Run.

The Polar Plunge will take place at Paint Lake on January 18th to help raise funds for northern Manitoba’s Special Olympics athletes.

Melissa Suggitt, Marketing Manager for the organization, shares the importance of sport for these athletes.

“For our athletes, sport is more than the physical activity that they get, it’s the place that they belong. When they go to their weekly program, they have peers, they can make friends, they just have this sense of belonging with this social group that they may not experience outside of our programming.”

Special Olympics has been active in the province since 1980 and currently over 1900 athletes represent us at National and International events.  Over 80 of those athletes are in the Thompson area.

To register for the Polar Plunge or to donate to a participant, go to plungemanitoba.com.

For the full interview with Suggitt, catch Thompson Today at 12:40 and 5:10 this afternoon.