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At low point two years ago, West Tampa legion post has new home, new hope

 
John Gebo calls out the numbers during bingo night at the West Tampa Memorial American Legion Post 248. 

The post closed its old headquarters two years ago as numbers dwindled and now occupies a new building. [CHARLIE KAIJO   |   Times
John Gebo calls out the numbers during bingo night at the West Tampa Memorial American Legion Post 248. The post closed its old headquarters two years ago as numbers dwindled and now occupies a new building. [CHARLIE KAIJO | Times
Published May 29, 2017

WEST TAMPA — Norma Hernandez is home again, playing bingo with her family.

"First of all, I love bingo,'' said Hernandez, 90, explaining why she has been a regular at West Tampa Memorial American Legion Post 248 for 30 years.

"Second, you're with your friends.'' After so much time together, she said, "You think it's your family.''

Members and friends of the post bade their 66-year-old clubhouse on Jamaica Street a tearful farewell two years ago. In the heyday of the 1950s, members and their families gathered there every Sunday for spaghetti dinners. They packed the place for weddings, dances and birthday parties and drew 150 people for bingo twice a week.

The bingo "family'' — now about 20 to 30 regulars — played in a rented hall until last fall, when the post bought a new permanent home, a former Knights of Columbus meeting hall on the corner of Cypress Street and Matanzas Avenue. A formal dedication is planned for 1 p.m. on June 10, followed by a spaghetti dinner fundraiser to support American Legion baseball, said Eddie H. Diaz, post commander.

On a recent Tuesday evening before the night's games began, Hernandez had her bingo cards ready, along with her good luck charm, a yellow rubber duck named Bingo. "I talk to him,'' she said. "When I say, 'You're not helping me,' I turn him around at the caller there.''

Many bring charms. Dee Senk has an elephant figurine. She rubs its trunk to improve her chances. Though the official games start at 6:30 p.m., Senk, also 90, arrived at the hall at 1 p.m.

"I have a key. I opened up,'' she said.

A number of regulars get there early and play informal games for pocketbook change all afternoon. She, too, has played at Post 248 for 30 or 40 years.

"This is their social life,'' said Mary McColgan, who runs the bingo games as president of the post's auxiliary. "See how nicely dressed some of them are?''

Bingo day is big, time to dress up, put on makeup and spend the day with friends they've known for decades.

"I have everyone's phone number,'' McColgan said. "If I don't see them during the week, I call them.''

Bingo and hall rentals provide most of the revenue for a post whose membership has steadily declined, like many American Legion posts, over the decades. New members sign up periodically, but only 40 or so members remain, said Diaz, a Navy veteran who was a post regular since childhood, when his mother, aunt and uncle would take him. Members pay $40 per year in dues. Most are in nursing homes or too infirm to attend the monthly meetings. About five or six make it to the meetings, just enough for a quorum.

But the post is in its best shape in years. Until members sold the building on Jamaica Street, adjacent to Macfarlane Park, Post 248 had little money for signature projects like sponsoring youth baseball teams, one of which won the league's World Series in 1981. Most money it collected went to building maintenance and repairs. Selling it for $325,000 to a home builder in 2015 meant the post could sponsor two high school-age baseball teams, provide a few $1,000 college scholarships per year, and purchase the Knights of Columbus hall for $220,000.

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"They said, 'Yeah, it's for sale.' Because they had the same problem we have — no members.''

Post 248 uses the profits from bingo night to help veterans. It recently helped a homeless veteran get an apartment and buy a bed. It's donating to a project of giving refurbished bicycles to homeless veterans. It's throwing a luncheon for 20 women veterans who were once homeless.

If the Veterans Administration asks for help, Diaz makes it his mission to do what he can for it.

None of this was possible before the sale of the original building, he said.

"It gave us the opportunity to downsize and hopefully reinvent ourselves.''

Contact Philip Morgan at pmorgan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3435.