Noon Rotary Club Raises $7,000 With ‘Cycling For Vets’

By Gary Nager

When you’re part of a club that has several members who are into riding bikes for fun and fitness, it only seems natural that one of your club’s most successful fund-raising events ever would have to include a bike ride.

Likewise, when you also have members of your club who have always strongly supported the U.S. military, it only makes sense that the fund raiser should benefit veterans and nonprofit organizations dedicated to serving those vets and their families.

In other words, I wasn’t surprised at all to see just how successful my friends at the New Tampa Noon Rotary (which now meets Wednesdays at noon at Café Olé in the Cross Creek Center plaza; more on the food below) were when they hosted their first-ever “Cycling for Vets” charity bike ride, benefiting four military- and public-servant-serving nonprofits, at the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. entrance to Flatwoods Park on April 5.

With more than 70 riders completing any of the three different courses (4-, 18- and 39-mile distances), many of whom raised $100 or more in pledges, the Noon Rotary is proud to have raised about $7,000, nearly all of which will be donated to the Navy SEAL Foundation, Operation Helping Hand (which serves restaurant-donated meals to the families of wounded soldiers at the James Haley Veterans Hospital on BBD), the Tampa Police Memorial Fund and the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Foundation.

Noon Rotary president Carl Irwin, an avid bicyclist who has a son who is a Navy SEAL, was among those completing the 39-mile course, while yours truly wimped out to a leisurely four-mile ride on a foggy, gray morning.

Among the sponsors for the event were State Farm/Joyce Coleman, Children’s Dentistry/Dr. Greg Stepanski, DDS; Little Greek Restaurant, Firehouse Subs, USAA, Chili’s of New Tampa, this publication and Café Olé, which has made sure that my dear friends in my former Rotary Club (I now belong to the Wesley Chapel Rotary) once again have the best food in Rotary District 6890.

The New Tampa Noon Rotary is always looking for more members. Those interested in finding out what this Rotary family is all about can enjoy their first lunch with the club for free.