Moose Lodge to Help Businesses Lost in Fire

The local chapter of the Moose Lodge is sponsoring a benefit breakfast this Sunday to support the owners of two local businesses ravaged by fire earlier this month.

Mike Hughes, who co-organized the benefit, said lodge members conceived the event a week ago to help Ray Munoz and Mateo “Junior” Valencia, the owners of Ray’s Automotive and Junior’s Tires, respectively.

“These two gentlemen have served the community for 10 to 12 years . . . and we thought we’d do something for them,” Hughes said.

Munoz and Valencia lost their businesses April 11 when fire destroyed the Los Angeles Avenue structure that housed the tire dealership and automotive repair garage.

Hughes said adults will be charged $5 for admission to the breakfast, and children will get in for $3. The Moorpark Moose Lodge Benefit Breakfast, from 8 a.m. to noon Sunday, will be at 320 Los Angeles Ave., Moorpark. For more information, call 529-0390.

All proceeds will go to the local business owners. Additional funds will be raised through donations and a breakfast raffle.

A number of businesses contributed goods to the event, including Albertson’s, Ralphs and Lucky markets, which each supplied food for the breakfast, Hughes said.

McDonald’s on Los Angeles Avenue donated paper plates and cups, while West Coast Pizza on Tierra Rejada Road donated gift certificates for the raffle, he said. Kinko’s Copies donated a large, computer-generated poster that hangs in front of the Moose Lodge announcing the event.

Hughes was pleasantly surprised by the response he received from the business community.

“The local businesses chipped in well,” he said. “They want to be responsible to the community, and I think they can understand and be sympathetic to somebody losing everything in a fire.”