Cape Coral BMX Association earns Community Recognition Award

The Cape Coral BMX Association has been working on revamping the local BMX track for several months. Although flooding early in the year may have washed away their progress, it didn’t wash away their hope.

On Wednesday, the organization earned the Community Recognition Award by the city of Cape Coral.

The Strausser BMX sports complex has been home to many bikers for about 45 years.

“We run the track as a very family-orientated, and it’s welcoming,” said Layla Viernes, a public relations specialist with the Cape Coral BMX association. “We welcome in all our kids in our community and around our community.”

In January of this year, the track was in the process of getting revamped. It later suffered major damage after a heavy rain event.

“We had scheduled to completely remodel the entire track,” said Nick Jones, Operators for Cape Coral BMX Association, “We were only scheduled to get rain. Rain the track could handle, but what happened that day, was 11 inches of rain in one hour completely destroyed everything. The weeks’ worth of work and thousands of dollars that we had put into the track was ruined.”

Jones has been operating the bike tracks for 7 years and said the damage left over from the weather event left him in unbelievable shock.

“When I first got there after the rainstorm, and I walked up and saw that all the dirt had washed away, and all that was left was seashells,” said Jones, “I really didn’t comprehend what I was looking at and it made me emotional.”

Those emotions were felt not only by Jones but also by people throughout the community who showed up and showed out to support the BMX association.

“I had posted a message on social media saying, ‘Hey, we need help putting this track back together.’ The first night I had showed up, and the amount of people that were there, with their children, everything shovels in hand, ready to go, was almost overwhelming. I didn’t expect that much of a turnout.” said Jones.

In just four weeks, the facility was back on track. The hard work and community support was recognized by the city of Cape Coral with the Community Recognition Award.

“All of a sudden, one day just got this email saying, ‘Hey, you know, the city manager wanted to recognize you and all your volunteers for all the hard work that you guys did for bringing this truck back to life’,” said Jones. “So again, It’s good for the riders of the track and our volunteers who put in a lot of time and hard work.”

The Cape Coral BMX Association was recognized with the award during the Cape Coral City Council meeting on Wednesday.