ORLANDO, FLA – Under normal circumstances, mid-September in the sports world is awash with baseball pennant chases, soccer runs to the playoffs and pro and college football. In the worlds of basketball and hockey, it is a time to plan for training camps and the upcoming regular seasons that are but a month away.
The key phrase in that paragraph is “under normal circumstances”.
Right now, the entire state of Florida is barely a week into digging out from the wrath of Hurricane Irma. The pictures coming from south Florida and the Florida Keys, much like those that came and are still coming from Texas and in particular the Houston area from Hurricane Harvey, are even more horrific than the pounding rain, howling winds, tornadoes in the dark and catastrophic flooding from when Irma drove through the entire Sunshine State.
As life began to get back to a newly defined normal in Central Florida on Tuesday, September 19th, three of the professional sports teams who call the Interstate 4 corridor between Orlando and Lakeland home rolled up their sleeves to help those in need as they begin to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.
A combined 300 members of the staffs from the NBA’s Orlando Magic, its G League team from Lakeland and the ECHL’s Orlando Solar Bears – all now a part of the RDV Sports family – spent Tuesday afternoon giving back to the community by helping two non-profit groups, Feeding Children Everywhere and Clean The World, prepare pre-packaged meals and hygiene kit boxes to be distributed in the areas worst hit by Irma and Harvey.
“Any time you can go out and help the community, it’s wonderful,” Solar Bears Head Coach Drake Berehowsky said. “I know my first year Joe (Haleski, then Solar Bears owner) had us do it and we’re [as part of RDV Sports] continuing the tradition of coming out and helping and being part of the community that loves us so much.”
Each of the teams had their personnel, which included upper management, coaches, front office staff members and in the case of the Magic players, split into two groups. Berehowsky and Solar Bears Director of Media Jesse Liebman led the group of hockey personnel at the Amway Center where they helped to package 35,000 meals for families in the affected areas. The rest of the Solar Bears contingent, led by Team President Chris Heller, went to Clean The World’s facility in south Orlando to assist in creating 18,000 boxes with recycled hygiene items such as soap, shampoos and other items that were lightly used in the hospitality industry as well as donations of items from manufacturers and others.
“It shows that the Solar Bears and the Magic, they’re not just about winning on the court or winning on the ice,” Andrae Bailey, representing Feeding Children Everywhere, said about the effort. “You’re seeing the players out here themselves rolling up their sleeves, the management rolling up their sleeves and making a difference in the community.”
The event was quickly put together by the management of the Magic, who have a long history of being a big part of the community.
“We really always try to mobilize pretty quickly when our communities are impacted by tragedy like Irma did to try and help in any way we can,” Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins said about the effort. “It makes us feel great. It makes us feel fortunate that we have the ability to do this. Our hearts go out to those who have been most impacted.”
Martins noted that this was the first time that the three teams now under the RDV ownership umbrella have teamed up and that it won’t be the last.
“This is really the first time that these two other teams (Orlando Solar Bears and Lakeland Magic) that we purchased this summer are coming together with the Magic organization to do an event like this. This is going to become commonplace for us now because we are looking at this like a family of teams,” Martins said. “Whenever we do these big full staff events, whether it is community outreach or anything of the sort, we’re going to bring all three teams together to work together.”
Mark Nolte, the Solar Bears V.P. of Marketing and Creative, said that the opportunity to be a part of the hurricane relief project was very rewarding.
“It’s something that we knew were going to be part of when we joined the great Magic organization. We’re fortunate to have them and their ability to set something like this up,” Nolte said. “We’re happy to do our small part to give back a little bit.”
Helping with hurricane relief efforts after dealing with the storm itself has been away to put everything behind those who came the nightmare with relatively less damage done. Nolte said he and his wife rode out Irma in Orlando and even though he had been through Matthew last October, Irma was something completely different.
“It was pretty crazy. We had never been through one before,” he said. “Matthew came last year and it was a lesser kind of storm [compared to Irma]. We lost power on Sunday night and then on Friday it finally came back on. We were glad to get through it.”
Berehowsky, who is about to start his second full season behind the Solar Bears bench after returning last year, and his family also rode out Irma in the Orlando area. He said that his first time experiencing a hurricane was horrifying and his home suffered some damage but the most important thing was that his family and friends all came through it well.
“It was scary. It was the first hurricane I’ve ever experienced. When those winds and rain come in, it’s a pretty horrifying thing,” he said. “We were very fortunate, my family and my friends, that we weren’t really that affected by it. Everything can be repaired and as long as everyone is healthy and happy, that’s all that we’re worried about.”
It will take time for much of the state to recover from and for people to forget the events of September 10 and 11 of 2017 but if there is a positive thing to be taken away from it is that no matter what happens, the teams of the RDV Sports family will always have the community’s back.
For more information on Feeding Children Everywhere, please go to www.feedingchildreneverywhere.com
For more information on Clean The World, please go to www.cleantheworld.com
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
Follow the author on Twitter@phnsingleaedit or @prohockeynews
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