Community Corner
Florida Freeshafters, O’Brien’s Fishing Club Donate Catches To Charity
Tampa Bay Harvest benefits from catches reeled in at the 2011 Florida Freeshafters Open Spearfishing Tournament and the O'Brien's Really Simple Fishing Club's annual mackerel tournament, both held this weekend in Tampa Bay waters.
More than 100 Florida anglers helped filled the baskets of Tampa Bay Harvest this weekend when they donated their collective tournament catches to charity.
Both the 2011 Florida Freeshafters Open Spearfishing Tournament and the O’Brien’s Really Simple Fishing Club Mackerel Tournament were held this weekend, May 20-22, in Tampa Bay.
Members of O’Brien’s Really Simple Fishing Club and the Florida Freeshafters Spearfishing Club each donated their catches, filling about six, 55-gallon drums with everything from amberjack to snapper.
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The fishing clubs donated their fish at O’Brien’s Irish Pub & Grill in Brandon, at 701 West Lumsden Road.
Volunteers from Tampa Bay Harvest, a nonprofit “food recovery and gleaning organization,” were on hand both days with a refrigerated truck to collect the fish.
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The fish will be distributed to more than 20 agencies in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties Monday morning.
According to the Tampa Bay Harvest Website, some 500 volunteers pick up leftover, sale-dated and excess food items from local supermarkets, hospitals, schools, restaurants and other food-related businesses to deliver to one of the more than 200 local area charities served by Tampa Bay Harvest. Since its founding in 1989, Tampa Bay Harvest has reportedly delivered more than 54 million pounds of food to local charities that in turn feed the hungry.
Last year alone the group distributed more than 4 million pounds of food.
O’Brien’s Really Simple Fishing Club donated two coolers of mackerel on May 21.
Club president Gene Hales wasn’t happy with the catch — “We’ve had better, he said — but he was glad the club was able to help Tampa Bay Harvest.
“We have a tournament every year and this year it just happened to be on the same day Tampa Bay Harvest was coming,” he said.
It was the turn of the Florida Freeshafters on May 22. O’Brien’s hosted a weigh-in and awards party for the club’s spearfishing tournament.
“I’ve more than three 55-gallon drums filled at this point and there’s more to come,” said Brandon resident Will Carey, general manager of Tampa Bay Harvest, as he surveyed the weigh-in on a scorching Sunday afternoon. “Everyone is happy. The fishing clubs are happy and we are happy with the donation.”
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