'It’s a miracle': Amazing story of why local family does annual Childcan Polar Dip

Every year Jim Howe leads a team of co-workers from the Toyota plant into the frigid waters of Lake Erie.

Nicknamed ‘Quinton’s Little Fighters,’ the group raises thousands of dollars for the annual Childcan Polar Dip in Port Stanley, Ont.

“I take it for the family, but it’s really cold,” says Howe.

His wife Nicola and children cheer him on from the sidelines as they raise money for the childhood cancer organization.

“Quinton was diagnosed when he was four months old,” says Nicola, referring to her son.

Quinton Howe, 6, a child cancer survivor cheers on his dad who was participating in the annual Childcan Polar Dip in Port Stanley, Ont. on Saturday, March 5, 2022. (Brent Lale/CTV London)

Six years later, the Howe family says they're lucky their son is alive. They can indirectly thank their oldest daughter Merryn for that.

“When I when I was pregnant with her, we decided to bank her stem cells just in case as insurance,” says Nicola.

“He (Quinton) was treated for the first two years and then he relapsed. So then we had to have a bone marrow transplant for him and his donor for the bone marrow transplant was Merryn. It was her stem cells from birth that we actually use for the transplant.”

The Howe’s call “the best insurance they’ve ever purchased.”

“It costs a lot of money to do that,” says Nicola.

“It costs a lot of money through the retrieval, a few thousand dollars, and it’s one of those insurance things that you just don't know you hope you'll never use them. But in our case, we had to and it's the best decision we ever made. It really is a miracle we chose to do that.”

The Howe Family participates in the Childcan Polar Dip to support an organization which helped them when their son Quinton (front left) had cancer in Port Stanley, Ont. on Sunday,March 5, 2022. (Brent Lale/CTV London)

So now they participate annually to help an organization that helped them while Quinton was sick.

So does the Wedlake Family who we introduced you to on Mar. 4, 2022

Six-year-old River Wedlake made his dip debut, although It was so cold, he only made it a few feet, before asking his mom to carry him the rest of the way.

By the time the dip had started Saturday, they had raised close to $70,000.

“All of that money goes directly to help the families with financial support, social assistance, emotional support and funding research,” says Kathleen Bernard executive director of Childcan.

“This makes a world of difference and we're so thrilled that it's such a success. This year we've got so many people coming back.”

After a year of virtual plunges due to the pandemic, they had more than 125 participants in this year’s Polar Dip.

The ‘Ice Ice Babies’ who raised over $20k for Childcan take the annual Polar Bear Dip in Port Stanley, Ont. on Saturday, March 5, 2022. (Brent Lale/CTV London)