Snowcat Ridge Alpine Snow Park in Dade City, Florida’s first snow park and only a 20-30 minute drive for many in the Wesley Chapel and New Tampa area, is officially open.
Located at 27839 St. Joe Rd., Snowcat Ridge opened Friday afternoon. The park is seasonal and will only be open through March.
Tickets are on sale at SnowCatRidge.com (you also can sign up there to get on an email notification list), and the prices range from $24.95 to $39.95, depending upon which days you choose to go. All tickets are $5 more if you buy them at the box office.
A general admission ticket includes a two-hour snow tubing session on Snowy Slopes, a 60-foot-high hill that is 400 feet long. A Magic Carpet ride (conveyor belt) will take you to the top of the hill.
It also includes all-day access to the 10,000-sq.-ft. Arctic Igloo, which will have plenty of man-made snow for making snowmen and forts, as well as a bunny slope designed for children ages 3 and under; and Alpine Village, which will feature vendors, seating and food and drink.
Dr. Karina Azank Parilo offers direct primary care at her KAP Medical Group office off BBD Blvd. in Wesley Chapel, which promises shorter wait times & fewer insurance headaches than traditional primary care medical offices. (Photos: Charmaine George)
If youâre frustrated with long wait times at your doctorâs office, not being able to get in to see your physician, or constantly being surprised with how much you pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses â even with health insurance â you might want to consider direct primary care.Â
Karina Azank Parilo, M.D., of KAP Medical Group, offers direct primary care, which changes the way patients and their doctor relate to one another by removing dealing with insurance companies altogether.
KAP Medical Group, which is open to all ages, is located in the Windfair Professional Park in Wesley Chapel, behind the retail plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. that includes Dickeyâs BBQ and The Hungry Greek restaurants.
Instead of collecting payment from insurance companies, patients (or âmembersâ) pay a monthly fee, which covers unlimited office visits and virtual visits via phone or video, in-office tests, well checks, sick visits, weight management and management of chronic medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis and more.
Dr. Parilo is originally from Tampa. She earned her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Biology from Duke University in Durham, NC, then earned her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of South Florida in 2005. She completed a residency in family medicine at the University of Massachusetts Family Residency Program in Worcester in 2010.
After working in a large private practice in Wesley Chapel for eight years, Dr. Parilo opened KAP Medical Group in early 2018, bringing along Michelle Diaz, who is now KAP Medical Groupâs Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) and office manager. The two have worked together since 2010.
Dr. Parilo and her husband Dane live in Seven Oaks and have a blended family of three grown children and three granddaughters. They met through the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon in 2012 and both have remained active in the club.
How Direct Primary Care Works
Dr. Parilo says the monthly fee is a transparent, controlled expense, which is affordable for most people. âItâs $54 to $66 per month for an individual,â Dr. Parilo explains, âwhich is a lot cheaper than most cell phone and cable bills.â
Dr. Parilo still sees patients in her office, but says that telehealth has become popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo: Charmaine George)
She recommends patients still carry health insurance because the monthly fee doesnât cover expenses outside of routine care, including hospitalizations, surgical procedures, visits to specialists and lab work. However, some in-office procedures are included in the monthly cost, with just a small supply fee charged, and Dr. Parilo says she has negotiated prices with labs, so that you may pay much less for your lab work than you would pay out-of-pocket if you used your insurance with a high deductible.
âWe recommend our patients have catastrophic insurance or a high deductible plan or something they can fall back on to cap their cost, which is how insurance was originally meant to be,â she explains. âOriginally, health insurance was like car insurance. You donât use your car insurance to get your oil changed or replace your tires.â
At KAP Medical Group, you will never be one of thousands of your doctorâs patients, which Dr. Parilo says is common at some large practices. In fact, at her previous practice, Dr. Parilo says she had 2,700 active patients, and was expected to take on even more.
But, in the direct primary care model, your monthly fee allows your doctor to limit the number of patients he or she will see.âWe will close the practice when we hit a certain number of patients,â she says.
That way, you always have access to your doctor in the way that works best for you, whether itâs a same-day or next-day office visit, or a quick text, phone call or video chat.
KAP Medical Group uses an app that maintains patient privacy and connects directly with each patientâs electronic medical record.
Covid Care & Precautions
Dr. Parilo says that her direct primary care model was an advantage when the office had to shut down at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Where some practices had to close their doors altogether, KAP Medical Group had a seamless transition to virtual patient care.
While the practice has experienced a couple of positive Covid-19 tests, Dr. Parilo says everyone has recovered well, and that KAP Medical Group continues to follow strict guidelines to keep all of its patients safe.
âWe have frail patients and donât want anyone getting hurt,â she says.
Now, as the pandemic continues to play out, Dr. Parilo and Michelle are in the office three days a week, and doing telehealth the other days.
âWe have a warm and fuzzy practice, with a coffee machine and a couch,â says Dr. Parilo. âWe try not to have you wait, but if you have to wait, itâs a comfy place. But, no one has sat on our couch in seven months, so itâs been different.â
The Patients Love It, Too!
Connie Ceparano, who lives in New Tampa, is a long-time patient who originally began seeing Dr. Parilo when her sons, now 27 and 22, were in elementary school.
âI chose her to begin with because she saw adults and children,â Ceparano says, âso our family wouldnât have to go to two different doctors.â
Back then, though, when Dr. Parilo was with a larger practice, Ceparano says she was often frustrated with the office staff and the way things are generally done at most other doctorâs offices. If someone in her family was sick, they would offer her an appointment several days down the road. Sometimes, she would have to sit in the waiting room an hour or more. Sometimes, thereâs even more wait time to see the doctor once you actually get into a room.
âIâm not bashing the practice she was with,â says Ceparano, âbecause theyâre all like that.â
But, the hassle was worth it, because Ceparano says Dr. Parilo is an excellent doctor who truly cares about her patients, and is extremely thorough and detailed.
She also says that when Dr. Parilo started her own practice, she would have followed the doctor anywhere, but she had no idea what to expect from the direct primary care model. As it turns out, she has been very pleased.
âI love this new way of practicing,â Ceparano says. âIt really comes down to being very personal. I donât ever have to worry about seeing a physicianâs assistant instead of the doctor herself. Not only do I get in the same day, I always get to see her.â
The transition from insurance-based fees to the monthly fees has been a benefit to Ceparanoâs family, too. âItâs so well worth it,â she says. âI feel like it pays for itself. If you need to, you can go in 10 times in a month and youâre not paying a $30 or $40 copay each time.â
Ceparano adds that she and her husband and her sons wonât go to any other doctor for primary care.
âMy sonâs job takes him out of town a lot, but he doesnât have to worry about finding a doctor. If heâs in California, for example, he has the app on his phone and he can call, text, or video chat. It really is a great benefit.â
KAP Medical Group Direct Primary Care & Family Medicine is located at 2615 Windguard Cir., Suite 101, across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. The practice is currently open by appointment only. For more information or to make an appointment, visit KAPMedicalGroup.com or call (813) 536-0050.
When you stay in business for 27 years and have had to move more than one or two times, you definitely dread having to do it again.
Well, I will be celebrating my 27th anniversary of owning and publishing the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News in a new location (more on exactly where that is below) in February, which will be our sixth office location in all that time.
I doubt that anybody can name all five of our previous office locations, but rather than make a contest out of it, Iâll tell you all of them at the end of this editorial. (if even I can remember them).
This would definitely have been the worst and hardest move, business or residence, of my entire life, if not for the help of several of the advertisers who appear in this publication and one Rotarian I greatly admire.
I donât consider myself to be a âhoarder,â per se, but those of us in the news business are supposed to save records for at least a certain period of time and I may have taken that to something of an extreme in my nearly three decades of serving the same distribution areas.
In addition, there was a time when we would order many hundreds (500-600 or more) of extra copies of each issue, so that we could, by leaving copies around the community, provide more people with all of the information they couldnât get anywhere else. But, not only did that never benefit the business financially, it left us with hundreds of extra copies of hundreds of issues of the paper. Do the math. Thatâs literally âcrap-tonsâ of paper!
We started ordering and saving fewer extra copies a few years ago â and weâve always thrown out/recycled hundreds of copies each year, but all I knew was that we couldnât (and shouldnât) take it all with us to our slightly smaller new office, located less than a half-mile west on S.R. 54 from the office we were leaving, both of which are very close to Saddlebrook Resort.
Shred (360)Your Troubles Away!
So first, I called on Cam Caudle, a U.S. Army veteran and member of the Rotary Club of New Tampa (the club that has been meeting on Friday mornings at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club for almost as long as Iâve been in business). Cam also is a recent (2015) âFranchisee of the Yearâ of Shred360, an incredible mobile document destruction company.
So, whether you have years of no-longer-needed financial and other records that you want to safely dispose of, or thousands of copies of publications that youâll never need (or both), Cam will send his mobile unit to your home or office and will shred all that paper, on-site which will then be recycled. (Note – The Neighborhood News is and always has been printed on 100% recycled paper, no matter which stock weâve been using.)
In our case, Camâs guy Ed (photo above) pulled the truck up to our office, and we dropped those thousands of copies into a rolling bin from our second floor stairs. The bin then got loaded into the truck (several times) and I was able to watch, on a small monitor, 27 years of my memories literally being torn to shreds…in a good way.
Got a large or small shredding job for Shred 360? Cam does some shredding events for charity throughout the year, but his prices are very fair and his people are as excellent at their jobs as Cam is funny.
Call Cam at (813) 944-2223 or visit Shred360.com and tell him I sent you (and told you to watch his stand-up comedy debut. Really funny stuff, but not suitable for kids!)
Why Is This Hauler Smiling?
Next, I definitely needed a good junk guy to get rid of…well, everything that wasnât coming to the new office that wasnât able to be shredded.
And believe me, that was a lot of stuff. We had several old filing cabinets filled with old advertising agreements, office furniture that wasnât going to be needed in the new office, a safe, and a whole lot more.
And, it just so happened that our old friend Don Smith â also known as The Happy Hauler â of Smithâs Clean-Up Service (top left photo) had just started back up advertising with us again.
Donâs another hard-working man. I stuffed lots of large, contractor-sized bags of garbage and he carried those bags â and the aforementioned filing cabinets and other garbage â to his waiting trailer and loaded all of it by himself.
Don told me that when he receives items he believes will be useful to local charities â like The Childrenâs Home Foundation of Tampa or the Sunrise of Pasco Hospice â heâll set those aside and drive them to the organizations. He told me our filing cabinets, the safe and some of the furniture might be useful to those charities. Best of all, he was done in less than an hour and his rates are extremely reasonable.
So, for everything from single item pick-ups to yard waste, construction debris, small building tear-downs and yes, office (or home) clean-outs, call Don at Smithâs Clean-Up Service at (813) 727-6655. Be sure to tell him that Gary from the Neighborhood News sent you!Â
Whoâs Gonna Clean This Mess?
Another aspect of moving out of one office and into another is that the place youâre leaving has to be broom-clean and even though the place youâre moving to should also be broom clean, I wanted both offices to be as clean as possible.
For our âmove-outâ clean-up, I chose the company thatâs been cleaning our office at the last three or four of our locations and the last at least 10-15 years â D Ultra Cleaning Services.
My friends Eduardo and Deborah Ferreira of D Ultra have always been reliable and although some of their cleaning folks donât speak much English, Eduardo and Deborah are both bilingual in English and Spanish and anytime Iâve had an issue over the years, theyâve always taken care of it right away. Theyâre good people who also do grout/ceramic cleaning, pressure washing, carpet and window cleaning and house and light commercial cleaning.
Call D Ultra Cleaning Services at (813) 758-9710 or visit DUltraCleaningService.com.
Because both jobs were so big and I had limited time to get them both done, I decided to let my other friend Celly De Freitas of Clean-it (at right in photo above, which was not taken at our new office, by the way) take on the job of getting our new office sparkling clean before we moved into it.
Celly came with her outstanding crew and in less than two hours, made the new office ready for primetime â or at least for us moving in.
Clean-it has other excellent references, is licensed and insured and also has been cleaning homes and offices in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel for nearly 20 years. Call (813) 505-0431 for a free quote today.
What I Really Need Is A Nerd!
I donât know about your business, but our office has to have working computers and I still donât know the difference between a server and a network and had no idea how to make sure we were able to safely move all of our desktop computers to the new office.
I have had a service agreement with the New Tampa Nerds to Go for over a year, but I never felt as fortunate to have it as I did as we got ready to move. Mike said to me, âGary, this is why you hired us. Weâve got you covered.â and dispatched his newest Nerd, Derik Jenkins, to our old office a few days before our move.
Derik came to see how things were connected to make sure that we could move the whole shebang safely, and when he came back, he got it disconnected, reconnected and up and running â and we literally never missed a beat.
If this kind of peace of mind is important to you, you should definitely visit Nerds To Go at 19651 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Ste C-6, or call Mikeâs awesome sidekick, Maxine, at (813) 321-1700 or visit NerdsToGo.com. Also, check out the ad in our latest issue for a great Black Friday special on an Acer Aspire TC-865 Desktop PC and other deals.
So, there you have it. Our new office is in the Westbrook Professional Park at 28949 S.R. 54, Wesley Chapel 33543. As soon as we get everything put away, weâll host an Open House/party to show off our new digs.
In the meantime, listed below are all five of our previous offices:
1. Gerry Mann Financial Building (11201 N. 56th St., Temple Terrace)
2. Palm Plaza (12108 N. 56th St., Tampa/Temple Terrace)
3. Pebble Creek Collection (19651 BBD Blvd., New Tampa)
4. Shoppes at Amberly (15345 Amberly Dr., Tampa Palms)
5. Brookside Prof. Park (29157 Chapel Park Dr., Suite B, Wesley Chapel)
Thanks again to all of our advertisers and friends who helped get us moved in quickly, cleanly and safely.
Scrolling through Kelsey Darraghâs popular YouTube channel, one thing is for certain â she has no filter.
Some of the titles and topics of her videos may make you blush (donât ask), while others you will irresistibly click (we said donât ask!), but Kelsey is both sassy and serious, and most often both at the same time.
However, you donât have to dig deep into her YouTube channel to find Darragh â a 2008 Freedom High graduate now living in a Los Angeles apartment with a view of the famous Hollywood sign â tackling more serious issues dealing with gay, lesbian and trans issues, being in an abusive relationship, battling chronic pain, getting sober and even living with mental illness.
Darragh, who proudly says she is a three-time college dropout â Auburn University, the New York Film Academy and Los Angeles City College â used her edgy sense of humor to burst onto the YouTube scene in 2010, and started working for Buzzfeed in 2015. One of her favorite videos was about being chained to her mother Kristy Darragh, well-known local realtor, for 24 hours. And, while mom may blush at some of the titles on her daughterâs YouTube page, Kristy has appeared in a few of Kelseyâs videos herself.
Kristy knew that Kelsey had struggled her entire life with anxiety, panic and depression. But, while she was at Buzzfeed, Kelsey bravely revealed it to the whole world, in video form of course.
The reaction transformed her life, and her mission.
âMy parents will tell you that Iâm the most dramatic child that ever existed,â Kelsey says. âItâs no surprise that Iâm using my voice for (both) entertainment and mental health activism. It was just kind of written in the stars for me.â
Kelsey Darraghâs first book is now available for presale and will be out for the holidays. Coming forward with her own mental health struggles has led to a career of helping others. We recently caught up with her to chat about making her life, well, an open book.
NN: Youâre an author! How surprised will the people you went to school with in New Tampa be when they see your first book?
KD: Never in a million years would anyone think I would write a book, especially a workbook about mental health. But I love books. I was obsessed with the language arts programs at Tampa Palms Elementary. I was always in that library. I can see it right now in my head, I knew every corner of that library. Definitely a book lover, but never in a milion years did I think I had anything important to say or any stories to write about that anyone would give a sh-t about until this book. I still canât believe it.
NN: What spurred your interest in mental health?
KD: At Buzzfeed, we were going to post videos every day that pertain to mental health education (during mental health month) and make them entertaining so people didnât roll their eyes at the science-y nature of what we were posting. In the brainstorm, I had the idea to tell my mental health journey through a video using stop motion effects and all of the props used in the video were replicas of all the pills I had been prescribed over the years.
So, I would make the pills into different stop motion art and words and figures and told my story over voiceover through the very short film. When I posted it through Buzzfeedâs platform, it went completely viral. Hundreds of thousands of comments, millions of views, I was getting messages by the 1000s every day. People struggling with the same thing. Two people even got quotes from the video as tatoos on their bodies… just opening that door for conversation caused the floodgates to open.
NN: Which led to a second life as an activist?
KD: Â I always say I kind of became an accidental activist. Once I realized oh (crap) people really want more of this content, I needed to be a voice for people to have access to information. Itâs so so funny to think of it as a passion, because for so many years it was the bane of my existence.
NN: And now, you are putting it in book form.Â
KD: I had been doing videos, more mental health content, public speaking, interviewsâŠ.I realized itâs very hard to cover the entirety of it in one article or one video. I wanted to share the information in a way that was understandable and relatable because every book out there that I could find about mental health was so boring.Â
NN: Itâs not a traditional mental health book written by a doctor. In fact, thatâs what you think will appeal to those who might benefit from its contents?
KD:Â It was important to create a workbook, and not a traditional read-it-and-toss-it book. All the pages have exercises or games or different methods of managing mental health. I want people to carry it in their pocket like a little mental health Bible (laughs).
(L.-r.) Kristy, Mike, Megan & Kelsey Darragh
NN: Thereâre probably no greater thrill than seeing your book for the first time.
KD: The first thing I did when we confirmed the cover, I printed it out at the exact size and the dimensions and taped it on top of another book I have, and set it on my desk. I wanted to see how it looked amongst my other books. And, I studied the way Barnes & Noble marketed and laid out books in their stores. Thatâs why the book is bright neon yellow with giant bold letters that say âDonât F*cking Panic.â I want people to see this book.
NN: So, you scheduled a book about anxiety that is coming out in a year that has been plagued by coronavirus, lockdowns, job losses and the most nerve-wracking election season ever. Are you just lucky, or an evil marketing genius?
KD: Launching my first book in the middle of a pandemic and before an election season was not anything I imagined happening, but in a weird way something beautiful that has come of this pandemic is people are paying attention to their mental health now more than ever. They are foreced to come to terms with their struggles. I think the collective response has just been this book is so needed right now. the deep ernd into cold water. We have floaties and hot life guards here.
NN: Your mom (well-known local Realtor Kristy Darragh of Florida Executive Realty) and occasional video co-star must be thrilled.
KD: She is such a successful staple in New Tampa and I always saw her as a very strong, independent woman in a mentor position. To have something as incredible and crazy as a book coming out with my name on it, I know she is so proud for me to be breaking stigmas and talking about things people donât talk about. Maybe this wasnât the plan that they had for their daughter, to have their book debut with a giant âF bombâ in the middle of it, but they have been nothing but supportive. My mom ordered like 10 books. Maybe sheâs leaving it on the coffee table in the houses sheâs selling. (laughs).
KRISTY DARRAGH
* Longtime New Tampa resident now living in Los Angeles.
* Can be seen on E!âs âDating: No Filter.â
* First went viral on YouTube ten years ago with her video âSh-t Girlfriends Say.â She began to attract more followers and started a web series on her channel, which has more than 116,000 subscribers. With an average viewership of 14+ million, Darragh tackles topics like sex, beauty, and mental health.
* Began making digital content for Buzzfeed like âLadiesâ Roomâ and âAdult Sh-t.â
* Created a top-tier show for Comcastâs âWatchableâ called âAm I Doing This Right?â
* In 2019, was selected as a Sundance New Voice writer for her dark comedy series âWhere We Are.â
* Is also a passionate member and supporter of the LGBTQ community as she says she identifies as queer and bisexual.
* Currently directing a documentary on Saraya Rees, a 14-year-old in Oregon battling mental illness, who was sentenced to 11 years in juvenile prison.
The Sikh Gurdwara in New Tampa serves nearly 1,000 hot meals every Sunday to those in need. It is open to everyone. (Photos courtesy of the Sikh Gurdwara of Tampa Bay)
Tucked between Cross Creek Blvd. and the entrance to Cory Lake Isles on Morris Bridge Rd., the Sikh Gurdwara of Tampa Bay temple, which typically goes about its business in relative anonymity, has become a haven for the hungry.
Every Sunday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., almost since the Covid-19 pandemic began, hundreds of families happily receive aluminum, plastic and styrofoam containers filled with hot meals â rice, soups, pastas, curries, veggie burgers and even burritos.
What started as a mission to help a few has quickly evolved into a mission feeding hundreds.
While meals are handed out at the Sikh Gurdwara, volunteers fill their trunks with food and seek out the homeless and hungry.
âWhen the pandemic started in mid-March, we had to shut down our temples like all the churches, and we were wondering how we could do something to lift the spirits of our congregation,â says Harpartap Singh, one of the templeâs volunteers.
The congregants turned to the templeâs langar, the community kitchen of a Gurdwara, which serves meals free of charge to everyone, regardless of religion, gender or ethnicity. âOne of the primary things in our religion is that everybody is treated equal,â Singh says.
The Gurdwara expanded the concept, and reached out beyond its congregation.
The members hung banners and posted invitations on social media. On March 18, it began â volunteers made 300 meals, although Singh says they were only expecting 15, or maybe 30 people. The plan was to take whatever was left over to Feeding Tampa Bay, part of the Feeding America network, which provides food to thousands of families that need it.
However, that Sunday, the crowd was overwhelming. More than 250 meals were served.
âAnd we havenât stopped since,â Singh says.
Now, the Sikh Gurdwara of Tampa Bay, which has been at its Morris Bridge location for 27 years, serves nearly 800 meals every Sunday. And, that number continues to grow.
On the Sunday before we went to press, the main course was split pea curry, prepared as usual by three chefs that Singh says are all excellent. Main courses are typically accompanied by bottled water, fruit, chips and salad.
Singh says the âhumbling experienceâ of feeding the hungry has moved his congregation, and inspired the group to do more.
âBarely a week goes by that we donât stand there and cry with somebody,â Singh says. âThey tell us it is the best meal they have had all week, and tell us stories about how some of their family members have died and there was nothing they could do. We have fed people who are living in their cars.â
The hot meals are just part of the Sikh outreach.
Volunteers take food all over Tampa Bay, seeking out the homeless and the needy. At one location, under a bridge in the Mango area, Singh says that 70-80 homeless people now wait for the Gurdwara volunteers to arrive with the food on Sundays. Whether itâs in the downtown areas of Tampa, St. Petersburg or Clearwater, a handful of loyal volunteers fan out to find people on the street to distribute an additional 200-300 meals.
The Gurdwara members provide groceries for roughly 50 families. They have fed and paid the rent for international students at USF who have lost their jobs and cannot return home. They deliver food to an orphanage in Wesley Chapel that cares for autistic children, as well as first responders and those on the front lines of the Covid-19 battle.
The volunteer list at the temple is 400 strong. Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who has visited the Sunday food drive multiple times, says he will be giving the group a City Council commendation in the coming weeks.
âWhat they do is incredible,â he says. âThey are good people.â
Most of the expenses are paid by the congregation, which is comprised of many doctors, engineers and business owners throughout the Tampa Bay area. Some sponsors also have stepped forward. In all, Singh says the Gurdwara has been responsible for distributing roughly 19,000 food packages and $60,000 worth of dry groceries since the pandemic began.
He says the congregation sees some of the real impacts of the Covid-19 battle up close on a weekly basis.
The pain is real. The Gurdwara has enough food to last through February of 2021, and its members have no intention of stopping even if the pandemic passes. They are even looking into becoming a farmshare conduit.
âEven though this is a great country, there are so many people who need help,â Singh says. âIt has truly touched us and lifted our spirits, and thatâs what any religion is about. We are blessed to be able to do this.â
The Sikh Gurdwara is located at 15302 Morris Bridge Rd. in Thonotosassa. For more information about the Gurdwara and its food drive, visit TampaGurdwara.com, search for Tampa Gurdwara on Facebook or call (813) 599-1557.