Wesley Chapel Noon Rotary Club member and former New York City police officer Chris Casella finds it hard to watch the news these days.
Every day, it seems, thereās another story about a cop being shot at, or killed.
āItās heart-wrenching,āā Casella says. āItās just crushing what is going on today.ā
For Casella, who worked as an NYPD police officer from 1990-2002, and other officers, past and present, working on the force makes you part of a brotherhood. A brotherhood, he reminds you, where men and women rush headlong into dangerous situations most people run away from, to help keep our society safe.
So, to show his appreciation, as well as the appreciation of the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club (which meets every Wed. at noon at Quail Hollow Country Club, or QHCC), he and fellow club member John Anglada ā also a former NYPD officer ā organized a day to show the Pasco County Sheriffās Office (PCSO) that its efforts arenāt going unnoticed.
On July 22, Rotary members were waiting at the PCSOās East Operations Center in Dade City with meals for all of the deputies and staff members who started their shifts at 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
There was egg casserole, donuts, pastries and coffee for breakfast, Publix sandwiches and hors dāoeuvres for lunch, and Publix chicken for dinner.
Each shift also received its own cake.
Casella said the idea to feed the officers sprung from a conversation he had with PCSO Capt. William Davis at a recent Rotary meeting, shortly after 11 Dallas police officers were shot in a targeted attack. Capt. Davis talked about what strange times these were for his officers, many with fewer than three years on the job, now seeing daily reports of their brethren being fired upon in the streets.
Casella and Anglada decided, āWeād like to do something for them that shows them that people in their community do care and appreciate everything that they do,āā Casella said.
Board member Rick Soriano also loved the idea, and said he was going to mention it at the clubās board meeting. He sent out an email looking for volunteers.
āAnd the response was just terrific,āā Casella said. āOne club member offered to pay for lunch and dinner and another paid for all the paper and plastic goods. We even had more volunteers than we really needed.ā
So, what started as just a breakfast grew into an all-day feeding of more than 100 PCSO employees.
Casella thinks the meals had an impact on the younger officers. He said when he was on the force, he was only ever recognized for his service two times ā after the 9/11 attacks and by the Rotary Club he belonged to in New York, which presented him with a plaque after he rescued someone from a fire.
āItās a tough job, and you usually only get noticed when the bad stuff happens,āā Casella said, adding that heād like to see this first āAppreciation Dayā evolve into other Rotary projects involving law enforcement.
āOur motto at the Rotary is āService Above Selfā and that just ties in with law enforcement,āā he said. For more info, visit WCRotary.org.
Wesley Chapel Sunrise Rotary Installs 2016-17 Officers
The Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Sunrise recently welcomed its new president, Ryan Phillips, and other board members for the 2016-17 Rotary year.
Cindy Wren Young is the new secretary, Javan Grant is the clubās new membership chair and president-elect Mitch McCartney is also the Rotary Foundation chair and treasurer. Kathy Schenck is public relations chair.
The installation dinner, held in June, also included a celebration of 2015-16 president Lynn Morgan, and guest speaker Nick Hall, a member of the Rotary Club of Temple Terrace whose cross-country bike ride to raise money and awareness for Rotary Internationalās āEnd Polio Nowā campaign was featured in this publication last November.
The Sunrise club, which meets Fridays at 7:15 a.m., also at QHCC, was recently awarded the 2015-16 Gold Level Presidential Citation and Public Image Citation at the awards banquet for Rotary Clubs in District 6950 (which includes Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, and Pinellas counties). For more information, visit WesleyChapelRotary.org.
Not every restaurant we write about in these pages is a fancy, sit-down kind of place. In fact, we also are proud to promote places that cater to a different kind of crowd…in this case, a place that caters to the chicken wings, burgers and beer kind of crowd ā especially for those looking for a new place after the recent closing of a nearby Beef OāBradyās (the one on Cross Creek Blvd. at Morris Bridge Rd.; see page 47).
But of course, the most popular items at WingZone are still the wings, which are available boneless or ātraditionalā and with 15 different sauces available for smothering them
And, WingZone, which now has about 70 U.S. locations and nearly 20 locations everywhere from Russia to Saudi Arabia, has added some new burger options, including a mac-n-cheese burger, a make-your-own burger and favorites like the Lumberjack (with cinnamon, maple, bacon and cheese on Texas toast) and the Widowmaker (four patties, four slices of cheese and four pieces of bacon).