SLINGER, Wis. — Some of Wisconsin’s Special Olympics athletes made their way to Little Switzerland Ski Resort Sunday to see if their homemade sled could make it down the hill without falling apart. 

“My daughter’s in the Special Olympics, so we just wanted to raise money for the charity,” said David Ott as he pulled his family’s sled up the hill. 

Ott and his family made their sled out of cardboard to look like a school bus. 

“My daughter loves school buses, so that was a pretty easy decision,” Ott said. 

It may have been an easy decision on what to make, but it took a lot of work to pull it off. 

“I would say at least 20 hours of contracting and painting and what not,” Ott noted. 

The school bus sled went over very well with the rest of the family. 

"We love it,” exclaimed Tad Christenson, a Special Olympics Wisconsin Athlete. 

Because of COVID-19, Special Olympics Wisconsin didn’t want to hold the annual Polar Plunge event. 

“Typically with our Polar Plunge, because it’s during cold weather, we have changing tents and all sorts of things where people would congregate together, and we decided because of COVID, we needed to take our safety precautions,” said Kathleen Roach, President and CEO of Special Olympics Wisconsin. 

The thing is, the Polar Plunge is too big of a fundraiser to really cancel. It brings in a lot of money for the athletes. 

“Typically, we raise about $1.5 million,” Roach noted. 

It’s money the organization couldn’t risk not being able to raise. So, through the entire month of February, Special Olympics Wisconsin has held these sledding events at different places all across the state. 

“We’ve had nine different events. People could sled, they could tube, they could snowshoe, or our biggest event was chilling at home,” Roach said. "People could do something in their backyard, they could dump water on each other, and that one in particular has had a great following."

While they might only bring in a third of the revenue, the new events have been pretty popular. 

“This is fun,” said Noelle Marks. “It’s very fun,” added her sister, Caitlyn, both Special Olympics Athletes. 

“It’s very fun!”

Organizers took note, and are considering adding the sledding events to the Polar Plunge next year. 

“It went so well today here at Little Switzerland, we’re thinking that maybe we’ll do the same next year,” Roach said. 

There are four events across Wisconsin next weekend for the Special Olympics Wisconsin fundraiser. You can see where they’ll be at https://polarplungewi.org/choose-your-adventure/the-great-outdoors/.