Hello I am Matthew David, 27 and I live in Red Deer Alberta. I am an Australian living in Canada on a work permit, went on snowboarding trip and never went home; I work as a Carpenter for Finishing Touch Builders. On Saturday Feb 18th, 2017 I jumped into Sylvan Lake for their annual Polar Bear Dip. I raised about $1300 through my gym Orange Theory Fitness.
I chose Lymphoma Canada as my charity after our gym owner Rocky had a family member (his brother) pass away from lymphoma.
The weather on the day was between -5 and 2 degrees Celsius, the lake was frozen over completely with about 3 feet on solid ice on top. I was only in the water for about 5 seconds; we jumped in and jumped out, helped by local firemen in dry suits. I just raised the money by having a donation sheet at the reception of the gym and had the trainers speak about what I was going to do at the end of every class. We run about 10 classes a day with around 25 in each class, news spread fast and people’s awareness of lymphoma became more extreme once they learnt why Rocky was missing as he was still mourning with his family.
