NEW JERSEY COPS ■ MARCH 2014
45
Local 105 once again shows the family spirit
■ BY DONNA WEAVER
At the 2014 Polar Bear Plunge, PBA Local 105 President Lance
Lopez was nothing less than the Family Guy.
His extended family – the bevy of State Corrections Officers
- once again invaded the Plunge. And that was his wife and family at the Beachcomber on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk joining the members to get ready to plunge.
Lopez’s wife, Adela, said she has been plunging the past four
years. Being a social worker, she is accustomed to giving back,
and the Special Olympics is one of the greatest causes anyone
can support, she said.
Adela realized how special.
“Something happened today that made me really feel the
impact that was example of why this is the right thing to do,” she
explained. “There was a young, disabled man in a wheelchair at
the entrance to the beach and I stopped to say hello to him.”
She struck up that conversation, and the young man took her
hand and kept kissing it. “When he kept kissing my hand I knelt
down and told him I was doing this for him,” she said.
The family affair included seven members of the Lopez family who took the plunge. Adela’s mother, aunts, god-sister, goddaughter and her 22-year-old daughter Quanah all participated.
“It was really cold but it was worth it to help out a great cause,”
Quanah said. The Lopez team succeeded in raising over $1,000
for the plunge.
Local 105, made up of more than 5,000 members, was happy
to return to Seaside Heights this year for the plunge and also to
the Beachcomber where the corrections officers hold their
renowned annual pre-plunge party.
“It’s really a morale booster for all the members,” said the
Local 105 President. “For us, this event is about helping out a
gr