Two Great Tournaments

Two Great Tournaments Came Together 4AHERO

By Theo Kramer, US Army Veteran

My wife and I have been part of something very special since 2018, when we first heard about the AHERO Organization. At that time, we were members of American Legion Post 378 in Gulf Breeze, Florida. We thought we had just signed up for another charity motorcycle ride. That day we were humbled when we saw what an impact AHERO had and still has on our active service warriors and Veterans. I told Kim, “This helping our wounded and hurting Veterans is what it’s all about. We need to be part of it.”

After threatening fellow American Legion Veteran Tiny Mercer with bodily harm (just kidding), meaning asking and not taking no for an answer, we finally got him and American Legion Post 240 to allow us to bring the Warrior Hook-Up to Post 340 for the next two years. We’ve been planning ever since.

With all of that said, there is no way that just Kimmi and I could have our ideas come to fruition with just the two of us. So, we enlisted the help of our awesome volunteers who answered the call and have spent late nights and countless meetings coming up with great ideas.

Because of Tina Conn and her husband Bill, with the support of the dart-loving community in the surrounding communities of Northwest Florida, players would be coming from all over the South to play and support AHERO. Many helped with donations and raffles during the Cornhole Tournament the group had arranged

Huge efforts by (l-r) Kimmi and Theo Kramer & Bill and Tina Conn and other AL340 members made these events come together in a big way for AHERO.

earlier. And the couple donated $500.00 to both the Cornhole and Dart tournaments.

Ginger and Tony Linton, who brought the Cornhole crowd together, put on an amazing Tournament at Post 340. They donated half of all the entry fees in support of AHERO and have asked about setting up a tournament again next year – only bigger and even better!

Karen Porter and Shannon Smith – or, as I like to call them, “The Donation Duo” – outdid themselves, ultimately bringing numerous donation items and baskets made for the two tournaments. Basically, they knocked on a whole lot of doors and pounded plenty of pavement to do it in support of AHERO!

And then, of course, there’s my beautiful wife who had to put up with me talking about AHERO before, during, and after our wedding on January 22nd this year. She was so kind, helping me when I was yelling at the computer as I tried to make a transparent logo for AHERO’s Dave Glassman to use designing the tournament poster. This was NOT my expertise at all! I struggled until midnight two days before the Cornhole Tournament to get it done.

You’ve probably already read the account by Jeremy Clark on what drove AL Post 340 and all of us to respond (ultimately with a $20,000 check … and then even more!) to AHERO’s chief volunteers, Lee Stuckey and Dave Glassman. Their quest for funds to make what they had enough to close on AHERO’s new Warrior Lodge became our quest, too. With luck and love, our Cornhole and Darts tournaments became a means to that end, along with raffles at the Legion and all of AL340’s generous members. We are so grateful to them all!

So, to Major Stuckey from me: Thank you and your amazing group of volunteers for letting my wife and me be part of the healing of Veterans through this great, caring organization we all call AHERO!

Dave Riley and Dave Trombly discuss the AHERO mission and outcomes affected by the successful fundraising of the ALR-340.