BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 Members of the Lehigh University community took part in a cold-weather fundraiser Friday, teaming up with Special Olympics Pennsylvania to host a mobile polar plunge on campus.<\/p>\n
The event invited participants to jump into cold water to raise money for athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the state.<\/p>\n
Lauren Lencovich, a master\u2019s student who works with the Lehigh University Community Service Office, helped organize the event. She said more than 100 people signed up and donated to take the plunge.<\/p>\n
Lencovich said the effort reflects both personal and community connections to the cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, my family operates a support coordination in New Jersey, so I have a lot of experience working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Lencovich said. “This is a really passionate project for myself, and then being able to connect this to the Lehigh campus before I graduate and starting this partnership has been really incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Special Olympics Pennsylvania, the event has raised more than $7,000 to support more than 15,000 athletes statewide.<\/p>\n
Asha Patel, a student who participated in the plunge, said it was meaningful to come together for a shared cause.<\/p>\n
Lencovich said this was the first time Lehigh University has hosted a mobile polar plunge for Special Olympics Pennsylvania and added that organizers plan to hold a similar event again in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 Members of the Lehigh University community took part in a cold-weather fundraiser Friday, teaming up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":{"0":"post-169034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-bethlehem-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}