Wesley Chapel Rotary's 'Turkey Gobble' Feeds Hundreds Again

Gobble1By Gary Nager

The Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon is proud to have again served more than 500 “Turkey Day” meals with all of the trimmings at two locations on Thanksgiving morning, Nov 26 — including 450 meals at Atonement Lutheran Church on SR 54 in Wesley Chapel — during the club’s sixth annual “Turkey Gobble.”

The 100-member WC Noon Rotary, which meets Wednesdays at noon at Stage Left on SR 54 in Lutz, has been feeding area homeless and other needy individuals & families at the church (which also is the location of the free Helping Hands Food Pantry for locals in need) every year since 2010. At this year’s “Gobble,” more than 50 volunteers from the WC Rotary (including club members and their family & friends) fed more than 450 families at Atonement Lutheran, while the WC Rotary’s “satellite” club in Land O’Lakes served another 50 meals at Keystone Community Church on S.R. 54 in Lutz, the third year in a row that the Rotary Club has “Gobbled” at Keystone.

Gobble2“We also donated 150 ‘snack packs’ for those families to take with them,” said Dineen Pashoukos Wasylik, the Rotary Club’s Turkey Gobble organizer this year for the third consecutive year. She also thanked a contingent of volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 149, based in Lutz. “And, some members of our club again went into the woods to take meals to the homeless camp (located off S.R. 54).”

Dineen also thanked other members of the community, who pitched in by delivering meals to housebound people in need. “I am so thankful for the volunteers who spent time on a holiday to put the ‘giving’ in Thanksgiving,” she said.

I am always so proud to say that I’m a member of the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club. If you want to be part of an organization that truly believes in the Rotary International motto of “Service Above Self,” one that always gives back to its local, regional and even international communities, visit WCRotary.org. First-time visitors always receive lunch for free at our regular Wed. meetings at Stage Left and you can even sign in as my guest.

All those noises last night explained

 

Sorry, but every time I hear booms or see the word “boom” I can’t help but think of “Boom goes the dynamite”. This video clip is just a little snippet. The full video is below, it’s a viral classic.

As for all booms and bangs last night, Pasco County Government spokesman Doug Tobin says from what he understands, and has been reported elsewhere, the noises were the result of air force exercises in the Gulf of Mexico. But they were certainly loud enough to rattle some windows and give my dogs a scare on our walk around 8:40 p.m. last night.

Here’s the top 5 Boom Explanations we pulled off the Wesley Chapel Community Facebook page:

  1. From banging my head against the wall trying to help my child finish this science project.
  2. Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom (parents who have been forced by their children to watch My Little Pony should get a kick out of that one. Admit it, you’re all singing the show’s theme song right now, aren’t you?)
    rainbow-dash-sonic-rainboom-o
  3. Aliens.
  4. Impending Apocalypse.
  5. Construction detonations.

 

Junior Woman’s Club Members Accompany Vets On ‘Honor Flight’

honor3Tampa Palms resident Melanie Otte remembers her grandfather’s stories about World War II. He would regale the family about his wartime exploits, as they leafed through his photo albums, and proudly show off a picture of the Enola Gay — the first aircraft ever to drop an atomic bomb — that he had to jump a fence to take the photo with a small spy camera.

It never really hit her, though, what his service meant to him until she recently chose to take part in an Honor Flight.

Otte and Wesley Chapel resident Jennifer Lee, both members of the Greater Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)’s New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club, served as volunteer guardians to a pair of U.S. Military veterans on Sept. 22, an experience that left both amazed, appreciative and very much in awe.

honor2
Jennifer Lee (left) and Melanie Otte

“I had been to Washington, DC, as a kid, but this was a much more moving experience,’’ Otte says. “I mean, standing there with a person who lived it, that was just something totally different.”

Honor Flights are one-day trips organized by non-profit organizations dedicated to providing a way for veterans to visit the monuments created in the name of their service scattered throughout the nation’s capital.

Last year, the New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club donated $400 so one veteran could make the trip. That inspired Otte and Lee to get involved as Honor Flight volunteers this year.

Otte served as a volunteer guardian to 80-year-old Korean War U.S. Air Force Military Police veteran Frank Kynion, who lives in St. Petersburg, while Lee escorted Laura Tilton, a 92-year-old Venice resident and World War II veteran.

The day of the Honor Flight began with alarm clocks going off at 3 a.m. for the volunteers, a donated breakfast from McDonald’s at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport, and a 4 a.m. flight to the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport with about 80 other veterans and their guardians.

When they got off the plane, the spunky Tilton asked Lee if the wheelchair had a speed limit, and Lee asked if she was pushing too fast.

“No, pick it up, we got things to see,’’ Tilton told her with glee.

honor4A contingent of military personnel was there to greet the veterans at the airport, setting off a whirlwind day of emotional sightseeing.

“When we were at the Korean War Memorial, it was very somber,” says Otte. “Frank was visibly taken aback. You could tell he was welling up.”

Otte said the listing of the Korean’s War’s U.S. fatalities (almost 40,000, with more than 100,000 injured) and the 19 haunting seven-foot-tall stainless steel statues standing in a patch of juniper bushes at the memorial was overwhelming.

Lee pushed Tilton around, although the former Naval Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)/pharmacy maid, was able to stand and walk for short periods of time.

“She was a lot of fun,’’ Lee says. “I think a lot of them just appreciated the one-on-one attention. She told me, ‘I had so much fun. I like to giggle, you like to giggle. She told me I was now her third daughter.”

honor1As the vets returned to Florida, they read dozens of letters written to them by school children and adults, thanking them for their service and dedication. When the plane landed back in Clearwater, a throng of roughly 800 people, including a band, were there to greet them.

Kynion, who married a Japanese woman after the war, says he faced discrimination as a result, and also lived through the anti-military era of the Vietnam War, so he was humbled by the support. In fact, many of the veterans, on multiple occasions, asked why everyone was doing this for them.

Otte told him the answer was simple: “Because you are our heros.”

The GFWC New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club meets the second Monday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the New Tampa YMCA (16221 Compton Dr. in Tampa Palms). For more info, visit GFWCNewTampaJuniors.org.

Two-car collision on S.R. 54 leaves two dead

fhpWESLEY CHAPEL — Two women are dead after an accident on S.R. 54 and Ernest Drive near the New River Library backed up traffic for hours Sunday night.

Lutz resident Barbara Janet Charlebois, 38, was traveling west on S.R. 54  when, for unknown reasons, she drove off the roadway and onto the right shoulder of the road. She overcorrected her vehicle, a 2004 Toyota Camry, to the left which caused her to swerve into the eastbound lane and into the direct path of a 2014 Buick Verano driven by 76-year-old Bridget Mary Kent of Ontario, Canada.

The collision between the two cars occurred around 8:50 p.m.. Charlebois suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene. Kent had serious injuries and was taken to Lakeland Regional Hospital.

There were two passengers in Kent’s vehicle. and both were taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. Lillian Cruickshank, 70, suffered serious injuries. William Edward Kent, 78 of Ontario, Canada, passed away overnight.

 

 

Have bike, will travel…across the country

DrNickRotary Club of Temple Terrace member, USF professor and Saddlebrook Resort Tampa director of wellness Dr. Nick Hall, Ph.D., M.D., recently completed a cross country trip from Oceanside,CA, to St. Augustine, FL, on his bicycle to raise funds and awareness for End Polio Now, a campaign focused on ending polio in the only two countries where it remains – Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since its first project in 1976, Rotary International has helped reduce polio cases by 99 percent around the world. Here are the 10 most interesting things you should know about Dr. Hall’s bike trek:

1— This wasn’t Hall’s first rodeo….err, bike ride across America. When Hall was a teen, he had a summer job in Black Hills, SD, and would take a bus home to Chicopee, MA. One summer, however, he decided to bike the 2,000+ miles home. This year, Hall decided to combine the 50th anniversary of that ride with Rotary’s fight against polio.

2 — Traveling roughly 100 miles a day, it took Hall a little over a month to complete the trip, starting July 14 and ending Aug. 15. He says he could have made it home even quicker, but he had one serious accident and a number of visits to friends along the way, including a day in Gainesville for a Rotary Club lunch.

3 — About that accident: it happened in west Texas when he ran over a 6-inch bolt that was laying in the road, jamming the front wheel of his bike. “The bike came to an abrupt stop, and I kept going,’’ Hall said. Bloodied but unbowed, he caught a ride with a truck driver — who ironically lives in Tampa — to San Antonio. Hall found the part he needed to fix his bike on eBay, and two days later was back on his way.

“My back-up plan was to leave the bike there with a Rotarian and resume the trip around Thanksgiving,’’ said Hall, who was racing to get back to USF for the start of fall classes, where he teaches anatomy & physiology and human nutrition.

DrNickBike14 — The bike, by the way, was a late 1960s vintage British-made copper-colored Raleigh Carlton. He says it was very similar to the bike he rode 50 years ago.

5 — On his original ride, Hall said he occasionally slept in jail cells and rescue missions along the route.

“I was sleeping in a park in Mobile, NE, and was roused in the middle of the night by a police office who told me it was against the law to sleep in the public park,‘’ Hall said. “He gave me a choice: get booked for vagrancy or he would book me in jail as a lodger.” So Hall spent a few nights 50 years ago on a steel cot.


6 — Hall didn’t get to spend a night in the slammer this time, instead pitching a tent wherever he could. The best places to sleep, he said, were behind churches, especially those in the bible belt. “Massive churches, unlike anything you have seen, nicely manicured lawns, secluded areas.” Hall said he also spent at least one night a week in a motel room, to re-energize.

7 — The worst place to sleep? Anywhere too dark to notice his surroundings, especially, well, railroad tracks. “One night, I slept in this beautiful green meadow, and it turns out the train track was right on the other side of the bushes,” Hall said.

8 — As for food, Hall, an expert on nutrition, says he would try to eat a good high-protein breakfast, preferably eggs and, once back on the road, he would munch on Fig Newtons and Hostess Apple Pies, the same ones he ate 50 years ago.

“I won’t normally even look at them, but they were a treat to look forward to on the ride.” Ice cream would keep him cool, and he would munch on potato chips to replace the sodium he was sweating out. Salads and fruits were regular treats.

9 — Did we mention that Hall was lugging along a 66-pound duffle bag (he weighed it at the airport when he flew to California before the trip) and two 10-liter water bladders, each weighing 15 pounds? So those artificial fruit pies were burned right off, and Hall said he weighed exactly the same – 150 pounds – at the end of the trip as he did at the beginning.

10 — Hall says the scariest things about the trip were the heat in the southwest, drivers distracted by their cell phones and, especially, roads with little or no shoulder room for bikes. Louisiana had many of these roads, including enough long bridges with no shoulders to Hall nervous. “There were lots of logging trucks, and there was nowhere for them to go, and nowhere for me to go,’’ he said. “I would just get as far over to my right as I could and hold my breath.”

Is Hall done riding bikes across America? Nope. “It was sad being over in many respects,’’ he said. “I got to where I was looking forward to meeting people.” Hall is back in the classroom and sharing his story at Rotary Club meetings, including a recent visit to Wesley Chapel Rotary Club, and still spreading the word about the fight against polio.