SHAKOPEE, MN – What started as a casual conversation between an owner and assistant trainer over the weather has snowballed into an act of philanthropy by the Canterbury Park community, spearheaded by Justin Revak, the owner/managing partner of Rocket Wrench Racing.
For the the last week, temperatures in Shakopee had been hovering in the mid 90s with the heat index climbing past 100, keeping fans and air conditioning units running at full bore around the region.
“Wednesday night I noticed that Clemente [Montoya, Karl Broberg’s on-site assistant] was sitting on the bench by the casino entrance all night even though he was done after the 4th,” Revak said. “We were talking and he told me that he was just enjoying the air conditioning.”
Informed that the unit in his dorm room above the barn was insufficient to cool the his room, as well as one the groom’s, a bell went off in Revak’s head – but he had to act fast.
“I just felt like I had to do something for them so I decided to buy them new A/C units. I stopped at Lowe’s but they were out. By this time it was 9:45 so I flew over to home Depot and they had some small LG units in stock so I bought 2,” said Revak.
Zipping back to Canterbury, Revak presented Clemente and Roberto the two air conditioners shortly after they retired – though sleep was difficult to come by in the evening heat.
“I thought I did my good deed for the day and that would be the end of it. But when I woke up this morning I felt like I needed to do more,” said Revak. “That’s when I decided to post it on Twitter and ask others to participate. I was blown away by the response. Within an hour I had nearly $1000 and by 3:00 I had $3600. The smallest donation was $5 and the largest was $1000. Home Depot couldn’t participate because it’s not a registered non profit but they gave me a bulk discount of 12% of so I was able to buy 25 units.”
By Thursday evening twenty of the units were distributed on the backside with more to come.
“Throughout the night I’ve continued to receive messages asking if they can still donate,” said Revak. “I’ll total up the additional money tomorrow and buy as many more units as I can.”
As can be imagined, the backside community has been elated with the new units.
A grateful assistant trainer and groom spent their first comfortable night’s sleep in days while others on the backside insisted on repaying the thoughtfulness with a beer or promise of a meal.
If you’d like to donate, Revak’s Venmo account is @justin-revak-1 (last four digits of his phone are 0083) and PayPal is jrevak@gmail.com.
As mentioned, this is not a registered charity, but one owner trying to make a difference and a community of other horsemen and fans rallying to make life a little more comfortable for the folks that take care of the horses. And with summer just beginning, the new units will be getting plenty of work throughout the meet
“What a day!”, exclaimed Revak. “I’m not sure I’ve done many things in my life that were more fulfilling than this.”
