Congratulations go out to Shahida Choudhry, Pharm.D., and her amazing, super-friendly, knowledgeable team at Palms Pharmacy at 17008 Palm Pointe Dr. in the Shoppes at the Pointe plaza in Tampa Palms, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in April with a great, free event for its customers.
Most items in the store were buy-one, get-one-half-off for the one-day party, which was attended by several dozen customers, in addition to the Neighborhood News. Photographer/video producer Charmaine George and I were among those who enjoyed the free cupcakes from Smallcakes Cupcakery next door, as well as truly delicious coffee drinks from the Bean Bar coffee truck.
Palms Pharmacy, which has been providing both rapid Covid-19 and Covid antibody testing for several months, is now also offering both the two-shot Moderna and single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccines, as well as shots for the flu, shingles and other ailments. And, the prices for everyday over-the-counter medications, vitamins, supplements, CBD products and sundries are competitive with the big chains. For more info, call (813) 252-9063, visit ThePalmsPharmacy.com or see the ad on pg. 19. â GN
Back in August 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and just a few months after the murder of George Floyd by now-convicted former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, I organized a Zoom Town Hall meeting about racism and asked Dist. 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell (which includes all of New Tampa and some of Wesley Chapel )to co-host it with me.
The Zoom meeting (photo, above) went exceedingly well, with about two dozen local residents participating, and a lot of great discussion on the specific subject of systemic racism. During the meeting, I promised to organize another Zoom and/or in-person meeting with the New Tampa community in the future.
Well, itâs been a crazy nine months since then, to be sure, but now, Rep. Driskell has invited me to co-host a Zoom Virtual Town Hall meeting with her on Wednesday, June 16, at 6 p.m., and Iâm really looking forward to connecting again with her and even more residents of our local communities.
Since it is a Town Hall, anyone who registers to participate (at bit.ly/driskelltownhall, see ad below) can sign into the meeting to hear our State Representative discuss some of the bills that passed during the 2021 Legislative Session, including education, criminal justice reform, the environment, bills related to Covid-19, health care and the state budget. Rep. Driskell also will discuss the bills that she got passed during the session, including police reform and a bill that will create a task force to address the issue of abandoned African-American cemeteries throughout Florida.
We also plan some time during the Zoom meeting for participants to and ask questions about life in their community, from traffic to development to what the state legislature is doing to help improve life in our area.
And, because Rep. Driskell wants to be involved in all of the communities she serves in Dist. 63, whether you miss that first meeting or not, you can connect with both Rep. Driskell and our District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera (see stories on pages 6 & 8 of this issue) at an in-person New Tampa Town Hall the following week â on Tuesday, June 22, 6 p.m., at Compton Park at Tampa Palms.
As if that isnât enough, Rep. Driskell also is hosting Virtual Office Hours on both Tuesday, May 25, noon-2 p.m. (the day this issue is certain to arrive in your mailbox, although it could arrive by May 24) and on Wednesday, July 7, also noon-2 p.m. To participate in either or both of these virtual office hours, email Lucile.Malone@MyFloridaHouse.gov or call (813) 936-0854.
As someone who has lived and/or worked in both New Tampa and Wesley Chapel since 1994, all I can say is that there have been very few state representatives â or elected officials in general, regardless of party affiliation â doing as much to be responsive to the needs of our communities as Rep. Driskell (or, of course, Councilman Viera).
My thanks go out to both of them.
No More Masks?
Even though Jannah and I have been fully vaccinated for some time, it took Gov. DeSantisâ repeal of all mask mandates in Florida for us to start going out in public without them.
Although it has been taking a while for us to get used to not having to wear our masks when we go out, I give Gov. DeSantis a lot of credit for taking the lead on this issue throughout the pandemic.
If the pictures below donât make you think ânutritious,â think again. These are just a couple of the staple offerings at the new UrbanGr#d Nutrition, located at 26244 Wesley Chapel Blvd. (S.R. 54) in Lutz, in the Grand Oaks Plaza. Owners Fio and Luis Diou have both been fitness fanatics for years, and they say they were frustrated at the lack of protein-packed, lower-carb breakfast and snack options here in the Tampa Bay area, especially in and around Wesley Chapel.
Luis, a chemist who says he became a serious weightlifter after leaving the U.S. Army, and Fio, a former online fitness and nutrition coach, have come up with a unique variety of delicious options already earning some buzz for UrbanGr#d on local Facebook communities from fellow fitness fans.
Top left in the photo gallery what may be the best oatmeal Iâve ever tasted. It features added banana caramel protein (there are other flavors available, too), plus a variety of toppings. I chose crunchy granola, fresh strawberries and real peanut butter and it was almost too good.
UrbanGr#d also features a variety of protein-powered donuts (top left; less than 2g of sugar each) waffles (bottom left), açai bowls, gourmet shakes, energy teas and even hot and iced protein coffee drinks. For more info, call (813) 388-9278 or visit âUrbanGrid Nutritionâ on Facebook.
Congratulations go out to the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel, which meets every Wednesday for lunch at Omariâs Grill at the Lexington Oaks Golf Club (GC), for hosting a record-breaking first-ever Charity Golf Open on Apr. 30. The golf tourney attracted nearly 130 golfers to the recently revamped Lexington Oaks GC course.
Although no final figures were available at our press time, current president Jodie Sullivan said it probably raised more than any of the clubâs previous fund raisers and benefited the Pasco County Sheriffâs Office Charities, as well as the clubâs community projects.
It was a hot day, but the golfers complimented the course, the Lexington Oaks staff (including owner/WC Rotary member Anass El-Omari), the Rotarians and the camaraderie â even though no one won the car donated by Parks Ford or the Sandals vacation by sinking a hole-in-one.
Lunch was served prior to the shotgun start and an awards dinner reception â which also included a cool silent auction of sports memorabilia â was held immediately after in Omariâs Grill.
âThis was a great event for the club, the community and the charities,â event chair Justine Esposito said.
For more information about the club, visit WCRotary.com. â GN
When I first started what was then called WCNT-TV (Wesley Chapel New Tampa Television) with a partner in 2016, my intent was to create something of a hyperlocal TV news station that would one day become a 24-hour âchannelâ featuring news and informational content solely about New Tampa and Wesley Chapel.
A couple of years later, not only had I taken over complete control of our online content from that former partner, we began focusing on short news and informational videos about the people, businesses and restaurants in our communities. That same year, as I was re-branding our online video content as NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net, with the help of a former producer, I applied for â and was stunned to receive â one of only 86 grants worldwide (and one of only 23 in the U.S.) from Google to expand that video content, as part of the online giantâs attempt to combat the growing proliferation of âfake newsâ online.
I was told by Google that even though our Neighborhood News print editions were only about two tiny (but growing) markets, a big reason we received a grant was because we had been in the business of providing real news to and for the residents and businesses of these two small submarkets of the Tampa Bay area for 26 years.
And, that grant money from Google did help us expand our online presence from an average of one video release every two weeks to more than two releases each week of 2019.
Unfortunately, Google didnât see fit to provide us with another grant for 2020 in order to keep that momentum going the following year, which then ended up also being the year that Covid-19 changed everybodyâs business.
Thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, however, I was able to retain and continue paying all of our employees, including videographer/video producer Charmaine George, but with most people not venturing out of their homes, and working mainly from home from March through much of the summer last year, it was harder for us to continue putting out the same amount of content and even harder to create and release content that people wanted to watch, despite having so much less to do outside.
Even so, we were still able to put out more than two video releases per week, with 74 total releases for 2020, which were viewed nearly 200,000 times, with a Facebook (search âNeighborhood Newsâ) reach of more than 300,000, bringing our overall viewership to close to 2 million through our first five years.
Our ten most-viewed videos of 2020 (all of which were viewed more than 5,000 times each, reaching an average of 12,000+ people each on Facebook) were primarily about new business and restaurant openings, especially Aldi, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (which had three of our top-10), The Grove, Aussie Grill, Main Event and Pasta di Guy.
Our pace for new video releases has slowed somewhat in 2021, and fewer of you have been watching them, although we also have been encouraged by the fact that our most-watched video ever was our exclusive sneak peek of the all-new Grove Theater (photo) in January, which has, to date, been viewed by more than 32,000 people with a Facebook reach of more than 53,000. We also have had decent viewership of videos about New Tampaâs new Fresh Kitchen and others.
To that end, our plan is to greatly expand our focus on dining and new business opening videos for the rest of 2021. So, if you or someone you know has a new business or one opening soon in either of our distribution areas, please email me at ads@ntneighborhoodnews.com.
