The 2022 Paladin Boat Ride and Community Event touched many people’s lives on Friday, August 12, where many gathered to enjoy an afternoon of fun. After enjoying a beautiful, sunny boat ride, everyone had a great time mingling, eating delicious food, and rocking out to live music.
The Paladin Boat Ride and Community Event started 23 years ago after charter captains Steve Kreighbaum and Mike Hambel found out about some charter captains holding a boat ride on Lake Erie. They were immediately touched and wanted to do something similar for their community.
“Steve said to me, ‘Mike, what do you think about doing this for Michigan City?’ I said, ‘yeah, I think we can do it.’ And the next year, we started our first ride,” said Hambel.
The event started small with only about 75 people in seven boats. Over the years, the event has grown an incredible amount. Now, there are typically over 300 people in attendance, including their families and the people who come to volunteer. Over 30 boats are needed to take everyone for a ride.
Steve Kreighbaum passed away, but his son, Tyler Kreighbaum, and Captain Hambel still hold the event yearly in his memory. This year has been their biggest event yet, and there are already plans to try to make it bigger. As long as they can get enough boats and volunteers, the hope is that the event can double or triple in size.
“We’d like to expand it and, hopefully, we’ll be able to,” said Hambel.
Both captains agree that the best part of the Boat Ride and Community Event is touching people’s lives. The boat ride is only once a year, but for those who find joy in these boat rides the excitement never stops. Both Captains will often have people approach them all year round to say hello and ask about the next boat ride.
“I can be going around Michigan City in December, and there are so many people, I don’t recognize them all, but they’ll recognize me and they’ll come up to me and say, ‘Captain Mike, how are you? Are we going to have another boat ride?’ And that is just really special,” said Hambel.
Kreighbaum just wants to make sure as many people get to enjoy the day as possible. It doesn’t matter how busy the event already is he’ll find a way to make sure everyone gets to take part in the fun experience.
“I’m not somebody who will say no. I had a woman call me last minute today from LaPorte who has four disabled kids. I said bring them. Bring them. Let’s do it,” said Kreighbaum.
After seeing the beaming smiles this event put on everyone’s faces, it’s clear that the Paladin Boat Ride and Community Event did more than just take people on a simple boat ride. Thanks to the Michigan City Fire and EMS teams, the Michigan City Charter Boat Association, the US Coastguard, countless volunteers, and two men with a dream, many people’s lives have been made a little bit brighter.
“It’s a great event. I hope it continues. We’ll try to make it grow as much as possible with as much as we can take. We’ll do it: we’ll make it happen,” said Kreighbaum.
To learn more about Paladin, and events like the Boat Ride and Community Event, visit https://paladin.care/.
