Jason's Jackalope Jump

  Every year Jason's Unit volunteers their time, supplies, and energy to a fundraiser for the Wyoming Special Olympics. The fundraiser is called the "Jackalope Jump." The short version of how this fundraiser works is  that people put together teams to raise money. And the incentive for people to donate money is that these teams then have to jump into a pool of freezing cold water during the winter. Most of the time, the event is held in January or February. This year, it was held in March for some reason. This year was also Jason's first time being involved with the fundraiser. The Jump that they helped with was held in Douglas. (There are multiple Jumps held all over the state.)

   First, the Unit brings down one of their "onion skins," or water bags, and set it up. The local fire department comes out and fills the bag with water about 3 hours before the even starts. Then they put together the platform and set everything up so it's ready for people to jump into.

SGT B. telling everyone what to do.

Putting the platform together.

The complete setup, minus the escape route out of the water bag.

Right before they started, SGT H. told LT B. that he was supposed to help people out of the water. He never told him why.

My LT got to stand on the platform and help people into the water.

The National Anthem. 

(I should mention that since this is a volunteer thing, the entire Unit wasn't there. It was mainly the full-time staff and officers.)

Helping the first team of jumpers up onto the platform. They were the Dr. Seuss team.

The teams were quite varied in where they came from. There were teams of teachers from the school, family teams, a team from a bank, and several more.

"Dr. Seuss" got to be the first jumper of the day. The air temperature was 39* and the water was recorded at 37*.

SGT L. and LT B. helping him out of the water.

I think the largest team was the Volunteer Fire Department.

This is what happened to SGT L. and LT B. on most of the jumps, which is why SGT H. put them there. He said it was LT B's initiation to the Unit.

After Santa pushed these "children" into the water, he jumped in, too!

And the last team of all to jump into the water was the Unit's!

Because they surpassed their teams fundraising goal, Jason, as the Commander, had to jump first. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good mid-air picture.

Next was LT B., who was pretty much already soaked.

Go SGT H.!

SGT L. with the classic cannonball.

Watching SGT B. take the plunge.

A very wet and cold team!

   After it was all done, they set up the bag to drain and went inside to change. It was a lot of fun to watch, and all the little kids from the primary school had come out to watch and cheer everyone on. From what I remember, there was a total of 52 people that jumped and as a whole, over $8,000 was raised for Special Olympics.