Solomons Offshore Grand Prix Embraces Food Drive

Next weekend’s Offshore Powerboat Association event in Solomons, Md., will crown the organization’s National and World Champions across multiple classes. But the Solomons Offshore Grand Prix will serve yet another purpose—helping to feed the hungry in Southern Maryland through the “Race-2-Give Food Drive” designed to restock local food banks.

With the OPA fleet rolling into Solomons, Md., local food banks could get a much needed boost. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Jamie McCarthy, the wife of offshore racer Charlie McCarthy, spearheaded the idea incorporating a food drive into the Solomons Offshore Grand Prix and tapping into the local goodwill generated by the race. With support from Maryland Marine & Cycle—her husband’s company—she worked with race director Mike Yowaiski, who grew up in Southern Maryland, and the race committee to make the food drive an integral part of the event.

“We have wanted to use the exposure of the race to support a charity, and when Jamie came to us with the idea of a food drive, it just clicked,” said Yowaiski in an OPA press release.

During the race weekend, there will be food collection booths in the dry pits area where spectators and racers can bring non-perishable food items. Everyone who donates can enter a free drawing for Solomons Offshore Grand Prix gift packs, which will include an official event T-shirt, and other items. McCarthy already has spread the word of the food drive through The Church by the Chesapeake—the distribution point for the food banks—and the Calvert County School Board, which allowed flyers about the food-gathering effort to be sent home with students this week.

“We are just so blessed, and this seemed like such a great way to give back by helping those in our community with the most basic need, the need for food,” she said in the release.