MacDill Happenings

Start out the summer at the Brandon Westfield Mall with Family Fun Days of Brandon from 5-7 June. This will be a community festival celebrating the end of school and the start of summer kickoff. The event inclides an inflatable midway, food from around the world, largest arts & crafts show in the area, and hands on activities for kids. Admission is free, but all day wristbands for the Midway are $15. Brandon is an affordable housing alternative from many people who work at MacDill AFB. Brandon is about a 30 minute drive from MacDill AFB. The LeRoy Selmon Expressway runs from Brandon to Tampa and can cut 10 to 15 minutes off your commute during rush hour. Make sure you buy a SunPass transponder it’ll save you .25 cents at each toll booth. Also, instead of waiting to pay at the toll booth with a SunPass transponder, you can go through the automated pay lane and save yourself some time. Brandon has all the amenities that anyone would need. The Westfield Shoppingtown is one of the largest malls in the Tampa area. It not only a shopping destination but also a great place for dinner with the Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen and Sam Selzer’s Steakhouse along with a host of other restaurants. A great local jazz club is Dela’s After Dark with its initimate setting and delicious food for dinner. There is a large variety of housing available. From single family homes to condos to townhouses, there something for every budget. The local community is very supportive of military families with many establishments offering military discounts. In Brandon there is the MacDill AFB Branch Medical Clinic across the street from the AMC 20 Brandon Regency movie theater so that military families don’t have to drive onto MacDill AFB for medical appointments. Make sure ask to go to the branch clinic in Brandon when you register at Tricare. A great source of information about Brandon can be found at the Brandon Chamber of Commerce website. There are some great neighborhoods in the Brandon area: FishHawk Ranch, Bloomingdale, Providence Lakes, and Brentwood Hills. Towns near Brandon include Seffner, Riverview, Lithia and Apollo Beach.

This is week is graduation week for Hillsborough County Public Schools. Although those graduating seniors may not be thinking about freshman year in college, Borders bookstore in Tampa can help you get ready for college. In a couple of months from now, those new college freshmen will be wondering where the summer went. Whether freshmen are staying at home or going to college in another town, freshmen year is going to be a shock. They are going to be on their own when they get to campus. It is going to be a lot bigger than a high school campus and professors are going to expect you to be responsible. You’ll have a wide range of ages in class and some will be freshmen and some may be upper classmen. Freshmen are going to have a lot of freedom that they did not have in high school. Learning how to manage time, study time and fun time, is important to succeeding in college. Freshmen need to start out on the right foot. Jeff Karon will give a presentation called “The Five Secret Strategies for Succeeding in Your First College Semester.” Karon not only will instruct students how to survive college, but share key tips that will bring success. His presentation is at Borders, 909 N Dale Mabry Highway, Thursday at 7 pm is free and open to the public.

MacDill AFB is holding is annual Basewide BBQ and Family Fun Day on 5 Jun from 11:30am to 2:30pm at SeaScapes Beach area! Everyone is welcome. Come out for fun and food! There will be complimentary BBQ chicken, hot dogs, brats and drinks! There will be water slides and sponsor booths and giveaways! “Lucky Penny” and “Mike th Magician” will provide the live entertainment. Come out and meet Raymond from the Tampa Bay Rays! The MacDill AFB beach is located next to SeaScapes and the FamCamp. The beach has several covered areas with multiple tables with benches, volleyball nets and BBQ pits. There is nice shower area with bathrooms so that you can clean up before you go home. Enjoy the water of Tampa bay and the sun setting over St. Pete across the bay. There is pleny on parking next to SeaScapes or right across the street by the FamCamp.