Mahopac Ready for 11th Freezin for a Reason Jump
This Saturday, March 10 hundreds of community members will take a plunge into Lake Mahopac for the 11th annual Freezin for Reason, an event that is a fun-filled celebration that year-after-year yields extremely meaningful, and now life-saving, results for those who cope with and suffer from cystic fibrosis.
For the 10th anniversary last year, 350 people jumped in the frozen lake. Maria Stiefeld and Mary Heady of Team Bella Moda were at the top of the list, raising a total of $18,000 to help find new drug therapies and a cure of cystic fibrosis.
“For everything those kids go through, jumping in a lake that’s a little cold is nothing,” Stiefeld said. “To see Jacqueline smile and the Stack family smile, makes it all worth it.”
And while they have taken their fund-raising efforts seriously going back to the first year the Stack family of Mahopac held the event to help raise money for cystic fibrosis to help their daughter Jacqueline and the thousands of others who have the disease, Team Bella Moda also has taken the fun part of the jump seriously, too, and every year they pull out the stops with their themed costumes.
Two years ago, they dressed like members of the rock group KISS and last year they donned a Rocky theme with bright sateen robes and red boxing gloves. And what about this year?
“I can’t tell you that until the day of…it’s little surprise for everyone,” Stiefeld said.
In the end, the ladies of Bella Moda, the hundreds of other jumpers and the fund-raising efforts of the Stack family throughout the year yielded a $180,000 check in 2011 to help find a cure for cystic fibrosis, with 90 cents of every dollar raised going directly towards research
“They are just amazing. I am speechless about what they do; what all of our top jumpers do. They all work so very hard. I am simply blessed. They are so kind and generous,” said Jacqueline’s mom Christine Stack, adding she had special news for the community that has so enthusiastically helped her family and so many others.
On Jan. 13 of this year, the U.S. Federal and Drug Administration approved a new breakthrough drug that will aggressively treat four percent of those individuals with cystic fibrosis — a group that Jacqueline Stack is part of.
“We are celebrating and we are happy. But we are not going to stop because our baby has been helped,” Christine Stack said. “Our job will not be done until we have helped the other 96 percent.”
Christine Stack said that this year 250 people already have registered to jump in the lake and she hoped more people would go to the Freezin for a Reason website at www.freezinforcysticfibrosis.com and register to participate this year. For those too timid to take the plunge, there is a “land lovers” option to purchase a $60 ticket for the after party from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Mahopac Golf Club.
“Everybody will be having a great time,” Stiefeld said.
For more information call 845-222-6233.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.