By Rachel Galvin
“It started five days ago with a phone call and a text…” said George Albert, referring to what would become a huge effort to help out the Bahamas.
On Friday night, Sept. 6, the parking lot of Big Dog Tackle (1440 N. Federal Hwy. in Pompano Beach) was filled with people busily going into and out of the store bringing box after box of supplies that had been donated to the trucks waiting outside. Inside, food, water, diapers, clothing and more were hastily being sorted and put in boxes, taped up and labeled ready to be put on a dolly and taken to the trucks. The effort was quick and massive.
“We have been working all day today and yesterday,” said Albert, who is on the board of Offshore Anglers of Pompano Beach and was joined by a large group of people from his group to make sure this effort happened.
Bringing supplies and loading them onto trucks was only the first part of the effort. The next step was getting them to the islands. That meant driving the trucks at 5:30 the next morning to the 14th Street Boat Ramp in Pompano to unload them onto about 40 boats, which were slated to leave bound for the Bahamas at 7 a.m. They also had obtained planes to fly from the Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport. They had received all the proper permissions from the Bahamian government. The supplies would be taken to a church there that they had been talking with to make sure they go to those most in need.
Nicole Zapetis, owner of Big Dog Tackle, when asked why they decided to do this, said, “We’re a local store. We wanted to do what we could. We expected people to come out and drop some boxes. [But we never expected this many]. We couldn’t be more thankful. Some of our customers have come out to help load trucks. I could never have imagined there would be so many people.”
She added, “I want to thank All My Sons, who donated trucks. Hooker Electric got the planes together. Offshore Anglers of Pompano Beach helped to get the boats.”
Daniel Horak, one of the people helping, said people were already loading trucks when he showed up to drop some things off. He heard about it through word of mouth.
“It is really nice to see,” said Horak, adding, “the Bahamas are in our backyard. A lot of us spend a lot of time there.”
For more information on Big Dog Tackle, visit https://pompanobeachtackle.com. For more on Offshore Anglers of Pompano Beach, visit https://offshoreanglerspompanobeach.org.