STINGRAY CHEVROLET CAR RAFFLES RAISE MORE THAN $3 MILLION FOR UNITY IN THE COMMUNITY

from Osprey Observer Valrico April 2023

by Osprey Observer

BRANDON’S TIMES SQUARE PIZZA OWNER CELEBRATES 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SANDLOT

By Jonathan Hurst

By Jane Owen

die. Follow your heart, kid, and you’ll never go wrong.”

Obedzinski puts his heart into all he does and loves living in Brandon. Our community is made up of hardworking people.

Shane just happens to be a hardworking Bloomingdale business owner who was in a famous movie. He wouldn’t change anything.

“There’s not a lot of places in the world like Florida. There’s not a lot of places where you grow up and you still like it as much as you did when you were a kid. I’ve been lucky to travel my whole life, and there’s nowhere else I would rather be than this area of Florida,” Obedzinski said.

Obedzinski and Jonathan embody the sense of community portrayed in The Sandlot, as they support all things local. The pizzeria highlights artwork from Burns Middle School and Bloomingdale High School, and they donate pizzas weekly to Brandon Regional Hospital, welcome highlighting local artists and quite simply love connecting with customers on a personal level.

And great news for all Sandlot fans: A Sandlot television series based in the late 80s is set for next year with the movie’s players and their kids.

Times Square Pizza is located in Bloomingdale Square at 927 E. Bloomingdale Ave. in Brandon. For more information, visit https://tspizzaco.com/ or call 813-651-0122.

For the 14th time, Stingray Chevrolet has successfully run its New Vehicle Rafe beneﬁtting Unity in the Community. On March 12, the May family were the recipients of a new C8 Corvette, as one of the 20 tickets they purchased was drawn as the winning ticket at the Strawberry Festival.

With tickets costing $5 each, there were between 60,000 to 70,000 tickets in the drawing this year, which was done live in front of a crowd at the Strawberry Festival and livestreamed on Stingray Chevrolet’s Facebook page. This year’s winner, James May, purchased 20 tickets but had not even consider winning and just wanted to help Unity in the Community continue their great work.

While all past years of this rafe are considered successful, this year broke records, as Stingray Chevrolet and owner Steve Hurley were able to generate $363,000 for Unity in the Community. In total, Stingray Chevrolet has donated almost $3,000,000 to the organization over the 14 years that this rafe has been held.

“We have given $2.945M over the 14 rafes to Unity in the Community. Ironically, that could have never happened without the help of the community itself here in Plant City. Without the Florida Strawberry Festival, our Unity board members, all of our volunteers at the festival, our outstanding radio media partners and so many more, the rafes could never have happened,” Stingray Chevrolet owner Steve Hurley shared.

Unity in the Community is a Plant Citybased nonproﬁt organization dedicated to helping those in need through donations to diferent local charities such as Plant City

United Food Bank and Lots of Hugs Summer Reading program. Additionally, Unity has 13 scholarships that it gives out annually to local high school students. Unity has a board comprised of up to a dozen local business owners and its founder, Joyce Jordan Hooke. Hurley also serves on the Unity board and was brainstorming ways to be able to raise more funds than they had in the past, and he contemplated simply donating a car. After some more thinking, he came to the realization that through a legal new vehicle rafe, they would be able to generate three to four times the value of the car. The community really rallies around this event, which allows Hurley and Stingray to help Unity in the Community fulﬁll its mission.

“I am just proud of all of the great people in Plant City who are able to help make this rafe happen each year. … The dozens and dozens of volunteers collecting the donations and the support of the radio companies providing bonus ads over and above our advertising buys each year is truly amazing,” said Hurley.

For more information about Unity in the Community, visit its website at www. unityinplantcity.org. Stingray Chevrolet is located at 2002 N. Frontage Rd. in Plant City. For more information about it, visit www.stingraychevrolet.com.