Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is October, is right around the corner. Denise Serra was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago and her husband Carmine came up with an idea to raise money for Avon Center for Breast Cancer Research.
Carmine is the Nanuet High School wrestling coach, Denise works in sales at Vision Sports Club and also works out with a member of the Pearl River Fire Department and a member of the Nanuet Fire Department.
Put all of those things together and you get the Nanuet Wrestling's Third Annual Fire Truck Pull for Breast Cancer at Vision Sports Club in Pearl River. Check out this Patch article for photos and a video of how last year's went.
“The past few years, the wrestling team has done a few fundraisers for breast cancer,” said Carmine Serra. “(The truck pull) started when I took over as coach (five) years ago. This is something the whole team can get involved in. We figured a fire truck pull would be a good thing and it just kept on growing.”
Businesses around town signed up as teams and any sports pulled including soccer, football, cheerleading, wrestling and volleyball. In 2010, there were 16 teams. In 2011, almost 30 teams came out.
"We have somewhere between 20 and 30 teams pulling (this year), a bunch of fire companies (Pearl River, Nanuet, New City, West Nyack, etc.), a few police teams, plus the usual assortment of Vision Sports Club gym members who have gotten teams together and high school teams mostly from Nanuet (Soccer, Cheerleading, Volleyball, Wrestling), but we do have a couple of teams from other schools coming as well," said Serra.
“(Denise) got breast cancer a few years ago so she’s been championing a lot of these fundraisers,” said Robert Logano, owner of Vision Sports Club. “She’s been with us (Vision Sports Club) since the beginning. She wanted to do a fire truck pull. We have a great long parking lot for this. A lot of firemen and police officers are members so she asked some of the guys if they would do a fire truck pull.”
Even the young ones get involved in the fun event.
"One of the highlights from last year was the "Kid's Team" made up of about 25 children ranging in age from 3-12," said Serra. "This year I know of one team of 11-year-olds pulling named 'L'il Tuggers.'"
