Watch | New Yorkers plunge in Atlantic Ocean waters to welcome 2016

Hundreds of New Yorkers ushered in the first day of 2016 by taking a plunge into the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Brooklyn's Coney Island.

The annual event is put on by the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, and it's held to raise money for charity. Some of the participants did it for the first time, while others have been doing it for years.

“It was amazing,” said Derrick Jones of Brooklyn, New York. “I will probably never do it again, but it was a great way to start the new year,” he said.

The Coney Island Polar Bear Club bills itself as the oldest winter bathing organization in the U.S. Its members swim in the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island every Sunday from November through April. The club uses the donations from the annual event to send children with life-threatening diseases, plus their families, to Camp Sunshine in Casco, Maine.