Community Corner

Test Your Top 70's Song Skills at Tonight's Honorary Mayor Fundraiser

Can you name that tune from the 70's? Gay Lynn Love wants to know, at her June 30 fundraiser for honorary mayor of Brandon, at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop. Also on tap, 70's videos, celebrity look-alike and hula-hoop contests, food and bar.

 

Care to guess the top songs from the 70’s? You’ll have the chance tonight, June 30, at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop in Riverview, where Gay Lynn Love is holding her final fundraiser for this year’s charity race for honorary mayor of Brandon.

The event starts at 7 p.m., with events including a name-that-tune contest, a hula-hoop contest, a 70’s celebrity look-alike contest and a silent auction. A live deejay will spin tunes from the decade, with food and a full bar on site as well. Also, videos from the 70's will be shown.

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The cost to attend Love's fundraiser is $10 per person and the money raised will support Love’s bid to replace Cami Gibertini as honorary mayor of Brandon.

Starting each year in June, candidates for the honorary post host fundraisers for their designated charities. The candidate who has raised the most money as of the morning of July 4 is declared Brandon's newest honorary mayor. Proceeds from the fundraisers go to the Community Roundtable, which organizes the annual Fourth of July parade and honorary mayor's race, and to the candidates' sponsoring organizations and selected charities and not-for-profit organizations.

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This year there are two candidates for honorary mayor of Brandon: Love, who with her husband, Scott, owns in the Greater Brandon community of Valrico, and B. Lee Elam, a long-time attorney, whose office is at the corner of Lumsden Road and Parsons Avenue, the start of the .

If Love is to ride in that parade as the newly named honorary mayor of Brandon it will be in part to the funds she raises tonight at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop.

Love said she was motivated to enter the race for honorary mayor of Brandon by her daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes. The longtime Valrico business owner has chosen three nonprofits to benefit from her campaign: the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the American Cancer Society and the , which is Love's sponsoring organization.

Love said in an interview today that she wanted to support the foundation because her daughter has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, "which cannot be cured with diet or exercise, cannot be outgrown and requires 24- hours a-day insulin therapy," she said.

"She was diagnosed at age 18," Love said. "She was in the hospital about two months ago, for the third time in three years. There's nothing I can do about her diabetes but there is something I can do about raising awareness for Type 1 diabetes and the need for a cure."

Love added that her mother has been fighting ovarian cancer for a year, and in turn motivated the candidate to support as well the American Cancer Society.

Love said she is working hard to raise money in her bid for honorary mayor.

"I probably won't raise more than people did in past years, but I'm doing the best I can," she said. "This party tonight will be a lot of fun, so I hope people show up."

The Barn Theatre at Winthrop is at 11349 Bloomingdale Ave., east of Providence Road and just west of Watson Road.


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