Desert Storm Organizers Select Charities For 2022 Event

With a daylong street party and top-speed shootout flanking a traditionally massive poker run on Lake Havasu, the charitable side of the annual Desert Storm Poker Run often gets lost in the mix. In 2021, for example, the Lake Havasu City, Ariz., based-event raised more than $30,000—through a portion of its participant registration fees and more—for local charities.

The Desert Storm Poker Run returns this year with two new charitable beneficiaries. Photos by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.

For this year’s event, which is scheduled for April 20-24, organizers Christina and Jim Nichols, Jr., have selected the Shadows Foundation and Glamis Veterans to support. The news was announced Friday in a press release from Storm Poker Runs.

Based in Flagstaff, the Shadows Foundation “supports those in need throughout Northern Arizona battling life threatening illness,” according to its website, and “helps with various tasks, like meals, transportation, utility bills” and more. In 2012, the nonprofit organization started a program that provides heart screening for first-responders “to help with early detection in this high-risk population.” It is one of several ongoing programs the outfit has created to serve its community.

The daylong Desert Storm Poker Run Street Party is among the highlights of the nearly weeklong event.

Founded and supported by a patriotic group of off-roaders, Glamis Veterans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides community outreach programs such as the annual Glamis Dunes Clean-Up and is “dedicated to providing a meaningful ceremony at the Flag Pole in Glamis every year,” according to its website. The organization’s overall mission is to “remember, honor and support those who have served our country and maintained our freedoms.”

“Both the Shadows Foundation and Glamis Veterans do remarkable things for our community,” Christina Nichols stated in the release. “The Storm team is honored to be partnered with them for a spectacular Desert Storm 2022.”

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