Special to The Laker/Lutz News

By Kyle LoJacono

When people think of hospital volunteers they tend to envision older women in pink outfits, but in reality people of all ages and genders can benefit from giving their time.
“We have students as young as 14 to our oldest volunteer who is 96,” said Susan Bennett, Florida Hospital Zephyrhills volunteer coordinator. “We interview the volunteers to find out where they would be most happy and be of most help here. That way they can have a good time while giving back to the community.”

The influx of winter residents in east Pasco County makes the need for volunteers greater at the hospital. Currently its volunteer group, Florida Hospital Zephyrhills Auxiliary, has 275 members, but 82 are on leave. To be a volunteer, people need to be at least 14 years old and commit to one four-hour shift weekly for 25 weeks.
“We have four main groups of people who volunteer,” Bennett said. “High school kids usually do it for volunteer hours, while college students are looking for job experience.
“Then you have people just looking for employment and use the volunteering as a foot in the door and let me tell you, I’ve seen that work,” Bennett continued. “More than one person has gotten a job from volunteering here. Then you have the older population looking to stay active and social.”
One volunteer is 15-year-old Jenette Norris, who is home schooled. Older sisters Jessica and Jaimie also volunteered at the hospital.
“I wanted to get some volunteer hours and I heard it was a good place to do that from my sisters,” Norris said. “I like doing it because I know it really helps the other people here get more done.”
On the other end of the age spectrum is Auxiliary president Wilma Eshenour, 82. She has recorded more than 1,400 hours volunteering, a hobby she shares with husband John. Eshenour said she started just to help people and will do so as long as she can.

Volunteers like Norris help in the hospital’s 60 departments doing tasks like answering phones, filing documents, opening mail, helping in the cafeteria and working in the Auxiliary Gift Shop.
“If we didn’t have this kind of help, we couldn’t get half the things done we do now,” Bennett said. “It allows our nurses, doctors and other staff more time with the patients.”
Those working in the gift shop help in another way. All the money from items bought at the store are currently going to fulfill the Auxiliary’s $50,000 commitment to the hospital’s new Compressive Breast Institute. Money from the shop also bought the new shuttle used to take patients to and from their vehicles in the parking lot.
While the hospital has many volunteers now, Bennett said the turnover is usually high, making the need for new helpers a constant. For more information on becoming an Auxiliary volunteer, call (813) 779-6256. Applications can be found at the hospital, 7050 Gall Blvd. in Zephyrhills or by visiting www.fhzeph.org/Careers/Volunteer.aspx.

Wesley Chapel kid assists Land O’ Lakes team

By Kyle LoJacono

Like many boys, Jacob Rush loves football, but being born with cerebral palsy makes it impossible to play the game.
Jacob, 11, has not let his condition prevent him from being a part of South Pasco Predators mitey mite team. He leads the stretching and agility drills to start practices and helps as an assistant coach.

“It makes me feel like I’m part of the team,” said Jacob, of Wesley Chapel. “I get to call out the drill and blow the whistle during warm-ups and help my dad coach the offense and defense in practice and games.”
Jacob’s father, Michael, is an assistant on the team, which is part of the national Pop Warner football program and plays its home games at the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on Collier Parkway. Players are ages 7-9. His other son, 9-year-old Caleb, plays on the team, which has started the season 3-1.
“I get the most joy out of him being able to be in sports,” Michael said. “I was very nervous that parents or the kids might not have wanted him on the sidelines and helping in practice, but everyone just feels good that he can help out. He gets to be part of the team.
“The other thing is the players get to see a kid like Jacob,” Michael continued. “I’ve been a teacher for 23 years, so I know how kids can be when they see someone a little different. It helps the awareness of kids to see that Jacob isn’t disabled, just a little different.”
Michael is a math teacher at Wharton High.
Jacob’s condition stems from a blood vessel rupturing, which caused the right side of his body to be less developed than his left, according to his pediatrician Dr. Patrick Yee.
“Cerebral palsy isn’t one illness, but a collection of conditions caused by damage to the brain and nervous system that cause problems with things like learning, hearing, movement, sight and other things,” Yee said. “The symptoms vary from very mild to very severe.”

Yee said it is not hereditary and added there is no way of knowing if the rupture happened before, during or shortly after Jacob was born.
Michael said no one else in his family has the disease. He and Jacob’s mother, Tammy, discovered Jacob’s condition very early, which has helped them control the symptoms.
“Jacob was born premature and had to be in intensive care for 28 days,” Michael said. “They did a brain scan and Dr. Yee said he saw a dark cloud that he wasn’t sure what it was. I can still remember that day he told us, but in a way we were very lucky to find out early.”
Jacob had to have an operation so he could walk more normally three years ago. Jacob does not have major problems with gross motor skills like walking, but has more trouble with fine motor skills that need more dexterity like picking something up with his right hand. He is left handed, but writing offers its own challenges.
For him to write traditionally he needs someone else to hold the paper still because it moves from the pressure of the pen or pencil and he cannot hold it in place with his right hand. Michael said he also loves computers, which is good because he uses them to write most of his schoolwork.
Despite being so young, Jacob has learned all the rules of football so well that he also acts as referee during practice, blowing his whistle to stop plays when he sees a penalty.
“I really want to be a football referee when I grow up, but I could also do something with computers,” Jacob said. “I love football and it’s great to get a chance to be a part of the team. Everyone is nice to me and I get to be with my brother and dad.”

By B.C. Manion

Watch out Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef, you may have some new competitors heading your way.

Pasco County public schools will be opening a new certified Culinary of the Arts Academy next school year.

A groundbreaking on the new $6 million facility is scheduled to happen at 9 a.m. Oct. 6 at Land O’ Lakes High School, 20325 Gator Lane.

The 18,000-square-foot center includes three kitchens; a 60-seat and a theater-style classroom with a demonstration station; and commercial kitchen equipment. It also has video technology that feeds throughout the center, so cooking demonstrations can be shown on flat screen TVs throughout the building.

The goal is to prepare culinary students to enter the workforce seamlessly, to continue their education, or both, said Rob Aguis, director of Community, Career and Technical Education for Pasco County public schools.

When students finish the program, they’ll be ready to work in all sorts of kitchens, ranging from neighborhood bistros to high-end restaurants, he said.

They’ll also have a chance to earn various culinary industry certifications, potentially saving themselves substantial sums of money.

The center’s largest kitchen is designed for beginning students. A smaller, more specialized kitchen is intended for more advanced students. A third kitchen – equipped with special temperature controls and marble, wood and stainless steel counters – is intended for training bakers and pastry chefs.

The new academy comes at a time when “the attention on the culinary industry has grown tremendously,” Aguis said. It also responds to a desire by students, he added, noting the high school surveyed students and found that courses in culinary arts are in demand.

The academy is the result of support from Superintendent Heather Fiorentino, as well as members of the Pasco County School Board and business members of the Pasco Education Foundation, Aguis said.

The academy will partner with the school district’s Food and Nutrition Services Department, which will serve café-style lunches to staff, visitors and the community.

It also will collaborate with the high school’s agriculture program, Aguis said. That partnership will boost students’ understanding of the importance of food quality. It also will give them a chance to gain a better appreciation of the connection between the planting of seeds, the cultivation of crops and the putting of food on the table.

“This has been a team approach right from the start,” Aguis said, noting that many district departments and personnel have helped in planning the project. The project’s architect, Williamson Dacar Associates and its contractor, Creative Contractors, Inc., both of Clearwater, also have been very instrumental, he said.

The academy plans to recruit partners in the culinary community, and has already lined up postsecondary partners that include The International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Tampa, and Johnson and Wales University.

The academy will be a place where students will have a variety of learning opportunities, both by observing instructors while they demonstrate and explain cooking techniques, and by getting hands-on experience, Aguis said.

By B.C. Manion

Every year, about this time, the population of Zephyrhills begins to swell.
At first, it is barely noticeable. There are few more cars on the road and some recreational vehicles begin to show up bearing Michigan or Minnesota tags.
They may arrive in a trickle, but by the end of the year thousands of seasonal residents will have settled into the city’s plentiful mobile home and RV parks.
“The population rises to anywhere between 85,000 and 90,000 in the greater Zephyrhills area up from around 50,000. It almost doubles,’’ said Vonnie Mikkelsen, executive director of the Zephyrhills Chamber of Commerce.
“I look at our community calendar in October and November and it is packed with activities. People are coming back. The traffic picks up. Businesses start ringing in more dollars, and then events just start happening all over,” she said.
Jen Tuttle, manager at the Golden Corral at 6855 Gall Blvd., is familiar with the annual influx.

“We look forward to it. We certainly appreciate our local regulars, but definitely the winter residents help support the business. I would say our volume doubles.”
In a normal week, the restaurant’s salad bar goes through about seven cases of lettuce.
“I would say we go through another seven or eight cases a week when we’re in full swing with the Northerners,” Tuttle said.
Besides picking up business, the restaurant hires additional help.
“As a matter of fact, I have a couple of employees who are seasonal employees – who come down here for the winter,” Tuttle said. “The most well-known is Rosemary. Everybody calls her Rosebud. Everyone loves her.”
Steve Lopez, general manager at Pin Chasers, at 6816 Gall Blvd., said the winter residents make a huge difference for the bowling alley too.
“Our daytime business, as you can see right now, is slow. In another month-and-a-half we’ll be full during the daytime, Monday through Friday, with senior park groups,” Lopez said. He estimates as many as 750 people join the daytime leagues during the winter.
“We obviously enjoy having them here. We have some events that cater to them, and we cater to their individual communities,” Lopez said.
The bowling alley’s café also gears up for bigger crowds.
“My burger sales go way up,” said Bill Harrigan, café manager. He also sells lots of hot dogs – nearly twice as many as he sells at other times of the year.
Christine Winters, of Winters Mobile Home Park, has been watching the annual migration of seasonal residents for more than 40 years.

Her father-in-law bought the mobile home park in 1952, and before that it was Eastman’s Trailer Park.
The park, at 38022 Winter Drive, has 270 rental spaces. Its seasonal residents come from Quebec, Nova Scotia and Alberta, Canada, as well as Minnesota, Michigan and other northern states.
They typically begin showing up around the middle to the end of October and stick around until about the beginning of April, she said.
Once they arrive, they get busy with card games, coffee hours, exercise classes and dances at the mobile home park’s recreation hall and in games on its shuffleboard court, Winters said.
Their presence is also noticeable around the city, she said.
“You can tell a difference in the winter time,” Winters said, particularly at the local churches and restaurants. “Most of the churches here put on an extra service.”
Dawn Smith, an assistant manager at the Twistee Treat at 36305 SR 54, loves seeing the flock of winter residents arrive. “We stay busy pretty much all day in the winter time,” she said. The ice cream stand starts getting busier in December and gets busier each month through March.
She sees many familiar faces.
“It’s our same winter people that usually come back every year,” Smith said.
Some of the people who start out as winter residents decide to become full-time residents of Zephryhills, said Bryan Toll, who is one of them.
Toll is the activities director at Betmar, 37145 Lakewood Drive, the city’s largest mobile home park.
For years he and his wife, Donna Sue, made the annual trek south from their home in Indiana. In 2006, they decided to settle in Florida full-time.
Now, Toll keeps busy at the mobile home park, which has more than 30 clubs including everything from bridge club to bingo, shuffleboard to Bible study, computer club to cribbage.
He estimates that roughly one-quarter to one-third of Betmar’s residents live there year-round, with the rest coming for the winter. They begin arriving in October and generally stay until spring. Some come down, return to their other home for the holidays and then return.
People living there come primarily from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, New York and Michigan, but also come from Canada, Indiana, Illinois and many other states.
Every time somebody new moves into the park, Toll said they ask: “Why are you here?” More times than not, it’s because someone in their family, or a friend, recommended it.
Despite the tough economy, the Golden Corral’s Tuttle said she did not notice a big drop off in winter residents last year, and said it’s too early to tell if it will this year.
But the winter residents are starting to arrive.
“We’ve actually already welcomed back a handful of our regulars,” Tuttle said.
Most will stay until sometime around Easter, several sources said.
Typically, it’s the weather, not the date, that charts the time of their departure, Tuttle said.
“Honestly, the weather up North determines when they leave. If it is still real cold, they typically tend to hang out here,” she said.

By Kyle LoJacono

The project to improve W. Lutz-Lake Fern Road took another step forward when construction began to widen the street Sept 13.
The current job is widening Lutz-Lake Fern from a two-lane undivided road to a four-lane divided street from just east of the Suncoast Parkway to the Boulevard of the Roses, according to Hillsborough County project manager Edward Arnold. It will cost $9.9 million.

Construction to widen the road from just west of the Suncoast to where the second phase begins was finished in February. It is set to be completed around May 2011.
In addition a planned but unfunded project will continue the widening from the Boulevard of the Roses to 300 feet west of Dale Mabry Highway. The estimated cost for the three-phase project is $58.4 million, according to Hillsborough Public Works spokesperson Steve Valdez.
A few years ago the stretch of road in western Lutz was mostly traveled by residents going to and from their homes, but that changed with the opening of Steinbrenner High for the 2009-10 school year. Both McKitrick Elementary and Martinez Middle were already in the area, but the high school increased the daily traffic on the road nearly to the bursting point.
“Each day, we encounter new challenges as parents, student drivers and school buses mingle with those just trying to pass by on their way to some other location,” said Steinbrenner principal Brenda Grasso. “Closing lanes and changing traffic patterns on the road obviously slow the traffic down considerably. We encourage parents to have their sons and daughters take the bus, and we ask them for patience as the county continues this effort.”
Grasso said a winding road was added on the high school’s campus to get vehicles coming to the school off Lutz-Lake Fern to help with traffic.
The first phase of the widening stopped just to the west of the entrance to the three schools. That intersection currently does not have a traffic signal, but Arnold said one will be added to help vehicles navigate through the area.
Maxine Thompson has lived off of Sunlake Boulevard, in the future third phase of the project, for 10 years and has to drive on Lutz-Lake Fern to get almost anywhere.
“The traffic has really gotten bad since the high school opened, so it would be a lot better to have the bigger road to drive on,” Thompson said. “I’m worried that traffic will be 10 times worse when the construction gets this far east and I’m sure I’ll be cursing the county for doing it then, but hopefully it will get done sooner then later.”
Lutz residents further east could also see a wider Lutz-Lake Fern in the coming years. Valdez said the long-term plan for the road is to widen it all the way to where it stops at US 41 in the east.
Valdez stressed that no plans have been set for the expansion further east, but the most likely way to widen the road is to build land up on one side of the street all the way east and then on the other.
It “is a very winding road in that part of town, so it will be tricky to design,” Valdez said. “It will be needed though as Lutz continues to gain population and with more people coming to (Oscar Cooler Sports Complex).”
The county is seeking input from the community about their concerns and comments about the construction. To do so, call (813) 635-5400 or visit the www.hillsboroughcounty.org/publicworks and click on the “Contact Us” link.