Fort Myers Fitness event benefits Beach kids
Many children in the Fort Myers Beach area will be waking up Christmas morning with gifts they may not have received if it wasn’t for the kindness of weight lifters, friends and a gym owner that has organized a friendly holiday contest for many years now.
The eighth annual bench press competition at Fort Myers Fitness on the corner of Island Park Road and US 41 last Wednesday evening yielded dozens of bikes and truckloads of toys that will mostly go to the Beach Kids Foundation for its Spirit of the Holidays drive.
Gym owner Bryan Raymond, a resident of Fort Myers Beach, decided to hold this year’s fundraiser for the record amount of needy children in the Beach area (188) that supports the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District. Each participant of the competition -and practically every one who showed up for the event- had to bring a toy or $10 for the entry fee. The combined money helped purchase more toys.
“Currently, we have 60 bikes and a couple of thousand in toys. The toys and bikes have been coming in for weeks,” Raymond said one hour into the benefit event.
The following day, Raymond reported the number of bikes spiked to 68 and toys to more 3,000. The Fort Myers Beach Community Foundation supports the toy drive with helmets – 82 helmets in all were collected. Raymond spent some quality time the next day transporting all of the bikes and toys of the toy drive to the Beach.
Beach Baptist Rev. Shawn Critser, who is involved with helping the needy children of the island, brought some of the Beach kids with him to the event. His church will be hosting a Christmas Village and Santa’s workshop for Spirit of the Holidays this Sunday, Dec. 21, from 4 to 7 p.m.
Sponsors of the bench press competition included Marina Mike’s and Mercedes-Benz of Fort Myers. Event goers included the Island Park Fire Department, Gator John, Twinkle Toes the Clown and many Beach children.
“This event means a lot,” said Raymond. “All of the toys behind us right now all came from people that really care. They are just average, blue collared people who dug into their pockets for the cause. (Fort Myers Fitness) is not a really big place, but everybody reaches out every year and helps us pull through.”
The Ape Team, a Fort Myers-based powerlifting squad that motivates people to join gyms, was among the many people who competed in the bench press competition. There were many winners in several categories.
Raymond said he also helped out Bay Oaks by donating grand prizes for the recreational facility’s Candy Cane Hunt last Friday. The donation was one pair of autograph basketball shoes from a player on the Denver Nuggets, two iPod shuffles and two bikes.