Motorcycling Veterans to raise Money for EOD Warriors with Poker Run This Weekend

REMINDER: American Legion Riders Post 221 EOD Warrior Foundation Poker Run is this weekend! The event is open to the public. You don’t need to have a motorcycle to particpate either.

Two guns will be raffled, a Glock 43X and a Diamondback AR-15 and there will be about 30 door prizes at the event as well.

100% of the proceeds go to the EOD Warrior Foundation.

Helping EOD Warriors

When Joe Aikens was a kid growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, he noticed the good works that members of his American Legion Post and other veterans’ organizations were doing in the community.

“I’d say to myself, I want to be a part of that someday,” he remembers.

Shortly after serving the country in the Navy and moving to Niceville in 2017, Aikens joined American Legion Post 221. That’s when he linked up with American Legion Riders, created by five EOD instructors in 2015.

In the last five or so years, post 221 has grown up quickly – and has started to do some of the same community building Aikens admired when he was a kid, including work to support the EOD Warrior Foundation.

A photo from the beginning of last year’s poker run

Aikens’ past as a Navy man, love of riding motorcycles and desire to help the community made him the perfect coordinator for this year’s EOD Warrior Foundation Poker Run. The motorcycle ride invites the Legion’s 460+ active members and 63 active riders as well as the general public to support EOD Warrior’s mission by raising money through the event.

“This is the 3rd annual EOD Warrior Foundation Poker Run and we look forward to keeping this tradition alive for as long as possible,” Aikens said, “We try not to label the importance of our poker runs – because, at the end of the day, every event is equally as important to us, but given the historical aspect of things, we can say that we hold this near and dear to our hearts.”

The first poker run, in 2020, raised $3,018.20. The American Legion Riders managed to about triple that number to $10,051.14 last year and hope to see another exponential leap in 2022.