Christmas in July Poker Run lets you try your hand at helping kids

Mike Suchcicki | Special to Pensacola News Journal

The good news about Christmas: Spreading happiness, love and good cheer. The bad news about Christmas: It only happens in December.

Well, the fine folks of the local Crossbones chapter of the U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club don’t like to be given bad news, so they’re moving the happiness, love and good cheer stuff up a bit by holding their next Poker Run on Saturday, July 21, and dubbing it “Christmas in July.” It’s a toy drive and fundraiser, with proceeds benefiting Communities Caring at Christmas.

“This is our first year with the July version,” says Andrew “Hagrid” Kelleher, Crossbones road captain. “It’s great to have a holiday charity, but then it’s forgotten during the course of the year. This way, by having it twice within the year, it helps keep the charity fresh within everyone’s minds.”

The Poker Run is a contest, road trip and get-together wrapped into one fun event in which bikers ride from checkpoint to checkpoint, each biker receiving a standard playing card at each stop. At the end of the five-checkpoint run, the participants with the best and worst poker hands will receive cash prizes. There also will be 50/50 raffles, other door prizes and lots of fun along the way.

Kelleher stresses, however, that you don’t have to be a motorcyclist to participate in the Poker Run.

“Bring your car, truck, it doesn’t matter. The whole point is to raise money and toys for charity.”

Cost to participate is $10, plus one unwrapped toy, for a single rider, and $15, plus the toy, for rider plus passenger. And a rider can gather extra poker hands for $5 each.

Kelleher says the club hopes to attract more than 100 riders for this weekend’s run. The last run, in November, gathered 105 riders, he said.

Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Woodsie’s Hilltop Lounge & Package, 5204 Mobile Highway. Kickstands are up (in other words, the run begins) at 11:30 a.m. Riders have until 4 p.m. to complete their runs, which end back at Woodsie’s.

For bikers already familiar with the local poker run concept, Kelleher promises a change of pace, and road map.

“A lot of motorcycle clubs in town like to do poker runs,” he says. “But a lot of them have been using the same stops. We said, ‘Let’s do stops that most clubs don’t do. Let’s make something that’s different so we stand out.' We have stops that haven’t been used before."

The U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club was established in Fort Lauderdale in 1987, Kelleher says. The local Crossbones chapter is five years old. The mission of the USMVMC is to offer a brotherhood and an opportunity to establish relations with other military veterans who have served in defense of the U.S., and to improve the image of military veterans and bikers to the general public.

Mike Suchcicki is a freelance writer for the News Journal.

Want to go?

What: U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club Crossbones’ Christmas in July Poker Run

When: 9:30 a.m. Saturday, July 21

Where: Woodsie’s Hilltop Lounge & Package, 5204 Mobile Highway

Cost: $10, plus unwrapped toy, for single riders; $15, plus toy for doubles (rider and passenger). $5 for each additional poker hand.

Details: 850-208-4180