(ABC 6 News) – 144 jumpers took the plunge into East Side Lake in Austin on Saturday as part of the town’s Paint the Town Pink (PTTP) campaign.

The Plunging for Pink event is one of the most popular in the PTTP lineup, put on by the Hormel Institute to help raise money for cancer research.

“In the 14 years, plunging has raised over 900,000 dollars. Today was amazing, we got in and out like very quickly,” said Daneka Wiechmann, the coordinator of PTTP.

While the Hormel Institute helps organize the event each year, it also requires many helping hands from local high schools.

“We kind of realized that all the schools don’t really contribute like everyone else does, so we worked with all the other schools to all raise money,” said Austin High School Student Council President Ali Muzic. “I feel like they don’t think kids can help out with this, but they really can. Just doing little things will help and create a bunch.”

The cause brings out many people who want to help support fundraising efforts.

“For me personally, I’m a radiation oncologist at the Albert Lea Cancer center so this is going to directly impact our patients here for furthering cancer research, and you know we’re hoping to turn that into more cures,” said John Yeakel, who took the plunge on Saturday.

Paint the Town Pink is set up to run through March with various events going on in between now and then. You can find a full lineup of events here.