🎒 Free backpacks Saturday, 31 lbs of meat for $220, plus the last water slide weekend

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Good morning, East of Tampa family.

Thirteen days. That's it. Thirteen days until Lithia Pinecrest at 7:40 a.m. becomes a slow-moving monument to poor planning, until the Starbucks line at Winthrop wraps into the lot, until you remember that the left turn onto Bell Shoals is a test of character.

Enjoy the empty roads while you've got them. Some of you have been doing 45 through Fishhawk Boulevard like it's a private driveway. I've seen you. It ends August 10.

I applied to Leadership BRCC. Nine months, eleven full days, and an outstanding opportunity. My wife asked me to explain it twice.

So here's the version I gave her, and I'm giving you the real numbers instead of the brochure version, because that's what we do here.

What it is. Leadership Brandon Riverview, now Leadership BRCC, has been quietly building the people who run this community since 1985. Before Winthrop. Before FishHawk. Before Bloomingdale had a Publix. If you've ever wondered how a decision gets made about a road, a school boundary, or a development off Boyette, somebody who went through this program was in that room.

What it actually looks like. Behind-the-scenes tours of the organizations that run this county. Presentations from the people making the calls. Volunteer work every month. A leadership skill built into every session. Nine subject areas over the year: military affairs and public service, social issues, health and wellness, community development, education, economic development, law and order, government, and sports and entertainment. DiSC assessment and emotional intelligence work built in, which I assume means I'm about to find out something about myself I already suspected.

The calendar. Block 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This is not a lunch-and-learn.

Opening Retreat Sept 18 & 19 (mandatory). Oct 1. Oct 15. Nov 12. Dec 17. Jan 14. Government Day, the Tallahassee Trek, February, date TBA. Feb 18. Fundraiser in March, TBA. Mar 18. Apr 15. Closing Retreat May 20. Graduation May 27.

Yes, they bus you to Tallahassee. Yes, I'm weirdly excited about it.

What you commit to beyond attendance. A Legacy Project your class picks and executes for a local nonprofit. A charitable component every single month for a Chamber member nonprofit. And a cornhole tournament your class plans and runs to fund scholarships for the 2028 class. That's right. Somewhere in my future is a spreadsheet about cornhole. I've made peace with it.

Miss more than two sessions beyond the mandatory events and you don't graduate. You need your employer's written consent.

The damage. $1,895 if you're a local Chamber member, $2,100 if you're not. Payment plans available, paid off by May 15, 2027. Non-refundable, which is its own form of motivation.

Deadline: 5:00 PM, Monday, August 9. Twelve days.

Now the honest part, because I'd rather talk you out of it than have you half-do it. Two grand and eleven workdays is real money and real time. If you're going to show up on your phone in the back row, save it.

But here's what I keep coming back to. You can live in Valrico for fifteen years, coach the kids' teams, know every shortcut to Brandon, and still have never once sat across a table from the people making the decisions that shape all of it. This puts you in that room monthly for nine months, next to twenty-some other people who are also trying to build something. The room is the value. The tours and the DiSC and the Tallahassee bus are the bonus.

I'd rather do it with people I know. Hit reply if you're thinking about it and I'll talk you through it, in either direction.

Apply: https://forms.gle/Gz4dpU17st6FMgah9
Questions: Brandon Riverview Chamber, 6437 Watson Road, Lower Level, Riverview. (813) 234-5944

Our freezer looks like we're preparing for something. I regret nothing.

Shawn McCranie spent years running wholesale meat with his dad. Sixty-plus years of family history on the Tampa restaurant-and-distributor side, the part nobody sees, where the good stuff goes before it ever gets near a retail case. Now he's going direct to consumer and cutting the middleman out of his own industry. That takes a spine.

The Premium Family Meat Box, $220, delivered to your door:

That's 31-plus pounds at roughly $7 a pound. Free delivery, Tampa and Hillsborough County, Monday through Friday. Everything arrives frozen and portioned. You pull what you need, the rest waits.

Go price 31 pounds of that at the Publix on Lithia Pinecrest and then come back and tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait. The Duroc pork alone justifies the whole box, and I'm not usually a pork guy.

No money up front. You reserve a box, Shawn emails you back with a delivery window and sorts payment then. That's it.

Thirteen days until the school year eats your weeknights. Fill the freezer while you still have the bandwidth to care about dinner.

➡️ Reserve your box: https://vermillion-gumdrop-c9c1b7.netlify.app

Locals doing business with locals. This is the whole point.

🌊 Keel Farms SummerFest. Final weekend. For real this time.
Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free water slides, free bounce houses, and it all shuts down August 2. If you've been saying "we should go to that" since June, this is the sentence where you stop saying it. Bring towels. Bring more sunscreen than you think. keelfarms.com

🎒 Back 2 School Bash. Saturday, August 1.
9 a.m. to noon, Hillsborough County Fairgrounds, 215 Sydney Washer Road, Dover. Free backpacks and school supplies, walk-up only, while supplies last. Plus 100-plus vendor booths and bounce houses. Go early. Nine a.m. means nine a.m.

If your family needs this, it's there and nobody's checking anything. If it doesn't, forward this to somebody who does. Takes you four seconds.

🎭 Oklahoma! at Plant City Entertainment. Closing weekend.
101 N. Thomas St. Third and final weekend. Local cast, live orchestra, the whole thing. There is something genuinely great about watching people from down the road belt out show tunes in a converted building in Plant City. Call 813-752-8728 for showtimes.

⚾ Rays. Trade deadline Friday.
They came out of the Cleveland series at the top of the American League, which is a sentence I did not expect to type in July. Now we all get to spend the week refreshing our phones to find out which player we've grown attached to is about to become someone else's problem. Check raysbaseball.com for this week's home dates.

📚 Hillsborough County libraries.
Free kids programming all week at Riverview and Bloomingdale. Free, air conditioned, and somebody else is doing the talking. Three for three.

Our new running feature. Current status: deceptively calm.

South Kings Avenue, Buckhorn Creek Road to Ronele Drive, is now in daytime mode. Northbound shifted to the west side, lanes reduced both directions, another two to three weeks. The cones have equity in that stretch of road at this point.

Victoria Street stays closed to through traffic between Meade and North Kings. Brandon High's teacher lot is closed, staff are in the student lot, and you can do the math on what that means for drop-off in thirteen days.

Boyette Road at Hammock Crest is in tunnel prep. Short delays around equipment deliveries.

Build ten minutes into your morning starting now, not August 10, so it feels like a habit instead of a punishment.

Got an event? It's free to list, in front of 5,000+ local inboxes.
Church fundraiser, garage sale, band playing at a brewery, we'll run it.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd17B5ir0AdLL_fbdTehlStiEKeiXexyQkSB2bHo7g3cxAQ3g/viewform

These businesses pay for this newsletter so you don't have to. Every one of them is a neighbor. When you need what they do, call them first.

Roof Rejuvenate SH - Jeff's treatment may add 5 to 15 years to a qualifying roof, three applications with a five-year warranty each. If your roof is that age where you've started avoiding eye contact with it, this is a phone call before it's a loan. 813-652-2777
https://www.roofrejuvenatesh.com/

BLVD Supper Club - The name says fine dining, the menu says come as you are. The pizza and burgers are the sleeper play. Great for a loud night out with friends or a date night where nobody has to pretend. 813-657-5700
https://www.blvdsupperclub.com/

FitDadBod Apparel - Apparel for local military veterans and dads who still get after it. Self-explanatory, and honestly a great name.
https://fitparentbod-apparel.com/

Integrity Seawalls - Docks, seawalls, boat lifts, boardwalks. We're six weeks into hurricane season and "I'll deal with it eventually" has an expiration date. Henry Spoly's crew shows up, and every review lands on the same word: fair. (813) 535-1634
https://www.integrityseawalls.com/

Clean Ice LLC - Torone Samuels cleans commercial ice machines. If you run a restaurant, bar, or anything with an ice machine and you can't tell me the last time it was serviced, I promise you there is mold in it right now. Everyone in the county is ordering cold drinks this week. 786-933-5947
https://www.cleanyourice.com/

Stoner's Pizza Joint, Bloomingdale - Allison and Kevin. Thin crust is bomb, buffalo chicken is the correct order, and the half-baked cookies should legally require a warning label. Nobody's running an oven at 96 degrees. Let them. (813) 436-0016
https://www.stonerspizza.app/pickup/stoners-pizza-bloomingdale/menu/categories

Madison Patron, Realtor - Former local teacher turned agent, which means she knows which house feeds which school. Thirteen days out from the first bell, that is not a small detail. It's the whole detail. 813-955-9092
https://pages.wiseagent.com/pages/?id=6EADEF23-3B29-46F6-BCFB-EA1AAC764D31

Glaros Law - Steve Glaros answers his own phone. If you've ever tried to reach an attorney, you understand that is not a small thing. Also just becasme honorary mayor of the Valrico FishHawk Chamber. 813-854-1234
https://www.glaroslaw.com/

Hitched by Hendrix - Sharon Hendrix is a veteran and a mobile officiant who builds the ceremony around the couple instead of making the couple fit the script. Cool-weather dates are booking now, and cool weather is a relative term here. https://hitchedbyhendrix.com/

Brandon Crossroads Bowl - 40 lanes at 609 Crater Lane and air conditioning that has never once let this community down. Robert Suess is building a scholarship-based Saturday Morning Youth League for fall, where kids literally earn college money for bowling. Lowest-cost participation sport on the planet. 813-621-2363
https://brandoncrossroadsbowl.com/leagues/

Ivy Plumbing - Faith Ivy. Local, responsive, and picks up. That's the entire pitch and it's enough. (813) 590-1443
https://www.ivyplumbingservices.com/

Maid Pure Cleaning - Dionne Cona was a teacher, is raising four kids across Brandon, Riverview and Valrico, and started this company because she'd been burned by cleaners enough times to think "I can do better." Bonded, insured, background-checked, eco-friendly, pet-safe, and if you're not happy they come back within 24 hours. 250-plus local families. (813) 670-2004
https://maidpurecleaningservices.com

Journeys By Jess - Jessica Kinkead is a travel advisor and here's the part people don't believe: she costs you nothing. The travel companies pay her, not you. You get a better trip and usually spend less. Join her free Facebook group and see for yourself.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/166867550352133

Forward this to whoever's still in denial about school starting. They need the thirteen-day warning more than you do.

See you Friday.
- John, The East of Tampa Guy

P.S. 32 days until college football. Week 0 is Saturday, August 29. North Carolina vs. TCU in Dublin, San Jose State at USC, New Mexico State at Florida State, and Memphis at UNLV as the sneaky good late-nighter. Thirty-two days until Saturdays belong to us again.