Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The fourth-annual Heroes and Hot Rods, a community day to recognize the city’s first responders, is set to take place at the Oregon Recreation Center on Sunday, Aug. 3 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The event, which takes place at the large lot across from the soccer fields, is sponsored by State Farm agent Dan Calmes and will feature a sport and classic car show, prizes and giveaways, a 50/50 raffle, family fun and food trucks, as well as live music and youth dance performances.
The men and women of Oregon’s police and fire departments will be there with police cars, fire trucks and ambulances to see. People will be able to sit in the vehicles and take pictures while interacting with first responders.
“I think the main thing is that the community members, police officers, firefighters and first responders come out and have a good time,” Calmes said. “I don't know if there's any other avenue where you have 40 police officers and firefighters out, walking around and talking to people. It’s just a nice day type of thing. It’s nice to be part of it, put it together, sponsor it and those types of things.”
Heroes and Hot Rods originally evolved from Calmes providing gift cards at Christmas to the city’s police department. After speaking with Oregon police chief Brandon Begin, they collaborated on the idea of having police and fire interact with the community members.
“I figure what they do and what they get paid for what they do, and the situations that they're put in (that they deserve it),” Calmes said. “I think in our community and smaller communities you got a lot of people that really appreciate them, and bigger communities, maybe you got a cross-section that maybe don't as much as they should.
“I always felt I just wanted to do something small for them, and it used to be gift cards at Christmas. And then I thought, I'll do lunch for them. And that's when I talked to the police chief and he said, ‘Maybe we can get together and grow this into a day. That's what I want to do as the new police chief. I want to get my officers, too, meeting the people of the community, and I want people of the community to get to know my officers.’
“The fire department wanted to get involved for the same reason. It's one of those things that I was in a position to be able to do. It's kind of a feel-good type of thing. It’s not a marketing thing for me. It's just a giving back type thing.”
There is a free registration for the sport and classic car show portion of the event, which features 250 available spots.
For those bringing cars to display, there will be free black coffee and donuts from Haas Bakery. For the first 100 cars registered, there will be giveaways of freshly ground coffee, gift cards, food vouchers and more. Everyone who registers a classic car will get free stuff, Calmes said.
A 50/50 raffle, a driver’s pool and gas card raffles will be sponsored by Cruisin’ Zeake & The Cruisettes, a legend in the area car show circuit. Proceeds from those three things will benefit Hospice of Northwest Ohio.
At noon, there will be a 90-minute live performance from The Frank and Dean Show, which is a tribute band to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. NYE Dance and Ohio Elite Cheer will also provide performances.
“I like to say classic cars plus Frank and Dean go together like peas and carrots,” Calmes said. “I know the public will enjoy the show.”
Additionally, the Heroes and Hot Rods event will feature three food trucks from Lyles Crepes, which serves tacos, HotDogs2Go, which serves specialty hot dogs and smash burgers, and Kona Ice, which will serve cool treats.
Tiffany from Actual Coffee will also be there with a coffee bar, serving everything from black coffee to specialty lattes.
Kids will also be able to enjoy free face painting.
