NEWS & STORIES
PHW Bay Pines – Tampa Celebrates Armed Forces Day with Fishing!
By Beccy Fortin, Program Lead, Bay Pines – Tampa, Florida
The newly merged Bay Pines – Tampa Program was invited for the annual outing at Bradenton Yacht Club to celebrate Armed Forces Day with several Gold Star Families. Each year we are invited to fish the final day of this massive fishing tournament. Teams come from all over to offshore fish: some boats will go as far as the Texas Coast as well as South America. On the final day of their tournament while they wait for the big boats to return, we are gifted this wonderful opportunity each year.
Pictured left-to-right:
Front Row: Greg Cutuli, Beccy Fortin (Program Lead, Deputy Regional Coordinator), Cary Lagace (Volunteer), Cameron Stuart, Capt. John Blenker
Second Row: Anthony Gallia, Guest, John Lagace (Volunteer)
Third Row: Stewart Mitchell (Regional Coordinator), Robert Passman, Howard Passman, Kathy Barbush, Dan Barbush, Bob Gause (Organizer)
Back Row: Everly Mulloney, Patrick Mulloney
This event is always an outing that the Program looks forward to. This year we had the pleasure of sharing the day with several Gold Star Families with young children. This is a wonderful experience for our participants as well as those families that made the ultimate sacrifice. Among our group, we had volunteers who were invited for the first time to this event, new participants, as well as long-time participants that knew this outing was not one to miss!
Cameron caught a beautiful grouper which so happens to be the first fish he has ever caught, what a way to start off. Cary one of our volunteers caught herself a beautiful snook. The organizers of this event seem to forget nothing, the event is kept on schedule, and the day ends with a meal and raffle. We are truly blessed and already looking forward to next year’s event!