ER4NC Pub Crawl through East Rockaway raises $10K for hurricane victims

The streets and waterfront of East Rockaway were crowded with crawlers for a cause on Sept. 21 as local group the11518 hosted its fourth annual pub crawl benefitting hurricane victims.

This year, the group dubbed the annual outing the ER4NC Pub Crawl, with proceeds going toward the Wilmington, N.C.-based Cape Fear Volunteer Center — a charity that matches volunteers with service opportunities, such as disaster relief in the state after hurricanes Florence and Dorian.

“We had an amazing day,” said Dan Caracciolo, co-founder of the11518 and one of the event’s organizers. “It was a grand slam.”

Caracciolo said that with some corporate matches, the group hoped to be at its goal of $10,000 raised for the organization. He co-founded the11518 as a grassroots group with fellow East Rockaway residents Joseph and Lauren Forgione. It originally focused on helping the village recover from Hurricane Sandy, but with the downtown bustling again, the founders have kept the group going to help others each hurricane season, and as a way to showcase the downtown and community spirit.

The crawl began with registration at The Bold O’Donoghue restaurant at noon. Crawl participants received two coupons after purchasing $60 tickets, one giving them $4 off their first drink at each establishment, and another for food specials and raffles. The crawl wound its way through Barrier Brewing, Michael’s Porthole, Reel, Lazy Lobster, Grandpa Tony’s and Mr. Beery’s.

At the inaugural crawl in 2016, participants raised $10,000 for Together Baton Rouge, a charity helping post-flood victims in Louisiana, and in 2017, $10,000 went toward Next Step Ministries, a community development group that helped Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas. At last year’s event, nearly $10,000 was donated to La Maraña, a women-led, grassroots nonprofit group that helped with recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.