10th annual Shamrock Shiver raises $20K on chilly day at beach

The surf on Bradenton Beach on Monday morning, the first day of 2018, was breaking bad, huge and wind-whipped gunmetal gray, and roaring like a hungry lion.

The wind was so packed with cool air as a cold front came through that it seemed to shriek, “Come closer at your peril.”

Even the sea birds were nowhere to be seen.

Yet, suddenly, out of the east parking lot at Gulf Drive and Seventh Street South, trekked a small band of human adventurers, many in bathing suits with inflatable plastic Toucan pool ring tubes around their waists. Some dressed in T-shirts depicting dominoes. Some were just in bathing suits, like a bearded lady. The real Miss Alaska 2017 was among them in a dress.

They headed for the beach, headed for the roaring maw of the sea.

Who or what, on earth, could they be?

Wait. It’s not a previously undiscovered branch of the human tree.

It’s the Shamrock Shiver.

About 100 take the plunge

Holmes Beach’s Jen Bowman and her Toucans were among roughly 100 hardy souls who jumped into the cold and froth of the Gulf of Mexico on Monday to start the new year in a bracing fashion and to help raise more than $20,000 in pledges and outright donations for Manatee and Sarasota charities in the 10th Annual Shamrock Shiver Plunge on Bradenton Beach.

Their efforts lifted the Shamrock Shiver, an event created at Clancy’s Irish Sports Pub& Grill, to roughly $216,000 raised over the past 10 years, said Liza Gorin, a Clancy’s historian.

A signed and framed photograph of Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams brought in $525 during a live auction to help the grand total, Gorin added.

Although they were really shivering after coming out of that scary surf Monday, many said the water was warmer than the air, which was in the mid-50s.

“Toucan did it,” said Karen Nicoll, one of a dozen or so members of Bowman’s charity team of toucans who were hoping to win their first Shiver Costume Contest title but lost out to the bearded lady, Peggy Garten.

A fascinating sight was to see Angelina Klapperich, Miss Alaska 2017, who lives in Alaska but was visiting her mother who lives locally. Klapperich was wearing a dress and her Miss Alaska sash.

“You know what’s funny,” Klapperich said. “The water was actually pretty warm, but now that we are back out, it seems to have cooled off quite a bit.”

This story was originally published January 1, 2018 at 9:43 PM with the headline "10th annual Shamrock Shiver raises $20K on chilly day at beach."