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LAKE BRANDON CHICK-FIL-A CELEBRATES 25 YEARS
As the Lake Brandon Village Chick-fil-A celebrates 25 years of serving the community, it also thanks its customers for being loyal for so many years!
When owners Paul and Tammy opened the location on June 18, 1998, it was the first free-standing Chickfil-A in Brandon and only the second free-standing Chick-fil-A in the Greater Tampa Bay Area. During construction, staf was hired out of a trailer onsite. The Brandon mall was just about to open, the Lowe’s Home Improvement Center hadn’t broken ground yet and there were fields for miles around!
“We didn’t know a soul,” Tammy said. “We opened a little Chick-fil-A and we didn’t know if it would be successful or not because it was on Lumsden and there were still cows grazing next door, when we opened.”
Fast forward 25 years and there isn’t an empty space for miles and the Lake Brandon Village Chick-fil-A now has more than 80 employees. Throughout the years, the store has been renovated twice, most recently to add the double drive-thru lanes and the covered drive-thru area with podium ordering. In 2017, Paul and Tammy also opened the Bloomingdale Chick-fil-A store near Bloomingdale High School and instant-
Campo Family Ymca Offers Swim Lessons To Students From The Head Start Program
By Makenzie Atkins Noel
ly found success with both locations.
“Both Paul and I are proud of what we have accomplished over the last 25-year journey in the Brandon community,” said Tammy, “and have seen many great changes in the area.”
Paul has now been a veteran franchise owner and operator for over 31 years with Chick-fil-A and moved to the Brandon area from Racine, Wisconsin with his wife and four school-aged children to open the Brandon location. When they moved to the community, the family immediately became involved in local schools, local sports and local community events.
Longtime customer Leslie Haxton loves the two locations and says, “Chick-fil-A is like Cheers, where everyone knows your name.” She orders a large coke every day, “because Chickfil-A has the best ice, cups and syrup mixture,” and she pairs it with the famous Chicken Minis.
Chick-fil-A Lake Brandon Village is located 11325 Causeway Blvd. in Brandon and Chick-fil-A Brandon South is located at 2010 Bloomingdale Ave. in Valrico.
Visit www.chickfilabrandon.com, stop by the restaurant or visit www. facebook.com/chickfilabrandon.
The Campo Family YMCA has partnered with 15 students from Pinecrest Elementary School’s Head Start program to ofer two weeks of swim lessons to the preschool-aged swimmers.
Through funding by Hillsborough County, Pinecrest Elementary was able to transport the students to the Campo Y each morning from Monday through Thursday at the beginning of May.
“They might not be able to come to swim lessons another way. So, I want to make the most of it because it’s not just that [the lessons] are free, but it’s that the school district is getting them here because transportation is a big barrier,” said swim instructor Paige Sahab. “The fact that the district gets them here is a big benefit of the program.”
The students were broken into three groups of five students based on their swimming experience and skill level. Sahab took each group into the pool for a half hour to work with the students individually.
“We talk about water safety: always asking permission before you go in the water, never swimming without a grown-up, and things like that,” explained Sahab.
The younger kids work on basics, like floating and kicking in the water, and older, more experienced kids are working on
By Lily Belcher
swimming short distances.
“I just feel like every kid that we can get swimming is another potential tragedy avoided. So, I see it as we’re saving lives here,” said Sahab.
This is Sahab’s first year working as an instructor at the Y, but she has been working with local recreation centers and pools for 15 years.
“I love that we’re doing this with the Head Start kids,” said Sahab. “I think that it’s wonderful, and I just felt like people needed to know that we are doing this.”
The funding from Hillsborough County allowed 10 Tampa YMCAs to host lessons across the spring and fall semesters. In the fall, the Campo Y hopes to host three or four more Head Start programs from local schools.
The Head Start program is a free public-school program that ofers specialized education to kids from ages 3 to 5 years old in low-income families. Teachers work with a small number of kids to maximize their development before beginning grade school. For more information on the Y and its swimming and summer programs, visit tampaymca.org.
