Although it has been 25 years since Brittany Meyers’ death, her memory still lives on in Garrettsville. The Timeout Sports Bar will host the 25th annual Brittany Meyers Memorial Poker Run on Aug. 1 at beginning at 10 a.m.
“It is spectacular,” Tom Meyers, Brittany’s father, told The Weekly Villager on July 24. “For a Mom & Pop run, no one would ever have thought it would go this far, and the community loves it. They ask what they can donate food-wise, it is just a family reunion every year that we all get together.”
The annual community fundraiser is held in honor of Brittany Meyers, who died when she was only 9-years-old in an automobile accident. Bikers from the community and out-of-state will assemble at the Timeout Sports Bar and go on a 110-mile bike ride, taking them to five different bars.
At each bar, bikers will pick up a standard playing card and keep riding, until they have arrived at all five bars and assembled a five-card hand. Once they return to the Timeout Sports Bar, they will present their hand to Tom Meyers, who will hand out monetary awards for several poker hands.
“Every once in a while, in a couple of years, I will change it up and give the worst hand a $100 or something like that,” he added. “It is just for fun. Sometimes I do that or give money to the best hand or even the youngest rider.”
Money raised from the event will be courtesy of t-shirt sales, Chinese auctions and donations courtesy of local businesses.
Meyers said that the community fundraiser has received support from several local businesses in the Garrettsville community, including Johnson Service Inc. and Skylane Bowling Alley, who have each donated items to the cause.
Meyers said that some items donated are included in the Chinese auction, which allows for people to purchase tickets and insert their ticket into a bag for each item they are interested in purchasing and after the run is over, Meyers draws a winning ticket from each one.
“I shake the tickets and one kid gets their hand in there and pulls out the ticket and I yell out the name, and I yell what the number is and then they come up and get their stuff,” he said.
Meyers added that all money raised from the fundraiser will be donated to the Brittany Meyers Scholarship fund, which awards a graduating male and female student from James A. Garfield High School each a $500 scholarship
According to Meyers, Brittany was an avid fan of Harley motorcycles and frequently attended indoor motocross shows. He credited his close friends for beginning the annual Brittany Meyers Memorial Poker Run in 2001.
“My friends are killers,” he noted. “They used to sponsor it before it was on my own. Another couple of people would give me some money so we could keep it going, then suddenly it was doing its own thing; it was doing it on its own.”
Meyers said that annual fundraiser has not only become a community tradition but has amassed a loyal following, as several riders expected to attend the event have been riding in memory of Brittany for the last 24 years.
He added that almost half of the riders taking part in the fundraiser bike run have participated in every one since its inception in 2001.
“They used to come in from Florida and there were some people coming from Pennsylvania,” Meyers said. “They will come in and rent the Harley and go on the run. Four wheels are welcome if you are there to support and hang out and have a good time.”
“The support from Garrettsville in surrounding areas has been terrific, we would not have been able to have kept it going on this long,” he said. “There are people that actually look forward to this every year, and there were people that used to come in from out-of-state to take a ride. They’d rent a motorcycle and go ride and visit their family
Meyers expressed his gratitude to the community of Garrettsville for continuing to support the annual fundraiser in honor of his late daughter, Brittany.
