PHENOMENAL FLOAT

Lions Club tube rental sets new weekend record

A local non-profit’s tube rental business had its busiest day to date Saturday, which means good economic outcomes for the community.

The Lions Club tube rental is run by the local organization which applies all of the proceeds to benefit local charities and educational opportunities for students in San Marcos.

General Manager Mark Jalufka said that Saturday was an intense and busy day throughout.

“We were absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, but it was also a very good feeling going home knowing that we made a bunch of money for the Lions Club to give away, back to the community,” Jalufka said, adding the money comes in and then goes right back out.

He said there were 50 people on staff during that hectic weekend, which is higher than the normal number of staff members,, but it was still not enough to cover the massive influx of tubers trying to get into the water for a break from the intense 100plus degree temperatures.

“We served about 2,000 people–not 2,000 tube rentals but 2,000 people –that’s shuttle passes [for those with their own tubes] and merchandise people came in to buy and stuff like that, but I’ll bet you at any given time … maybe 10% of the tubes that were in the river were actually Lions Club tube rentals,” Jalufka said. “Most of them were people who bought their own tubes, and even a smaller percentage of that were people who bought shuttle passes … There are people that think that if the Lions Club went away there wouldn’t be near sly as many people in the river. Well, that’s not true. There would be the same amount of people in the river, but there wouldn’t be $400 grand going back into the community at the end of the year.”

The Lions Club used to raise funds in other ways too, Jalufka said.

“Those other fundraisers kind of slowly stopped, because of the number of volunteer man hours that go into some of those projects. This [tube rentals] dwarfed it. With fewer volunteers, we were able to make more money.” Jalufka said.

He said he wanted the community to know how the club looks out for San Marcos.

“We care about the community. We care about the river. We do a lot of river-related things that some of that $400,000 [a year] goes to,” Jalufka said.

He said at one time the city of San Marcos Parks Advisory Committee wanted to put the business up for bids, but it was pointed out that whoever bought it would keep the money for themselves and it would be a great loss to the community in the long term.

Jalufka said due to the recent and intense drought conditions, the San Marcos River is the best location to float in the area because the water levels are higher than those recorded for neighboring rivers and sites.

“When the river is low, like it obviously is here, it’s lower on the Comal, and even still lower on the Guadalupe,” Jalufka said. “We’ve gotten a lot of extra business because of that because people don’t want to have to–every five to 10 minutes–get up and walk for a while … we call that ‘butt dragging’.”

He added that there is no butt dragging in the San Marcos River.

He said working for the Lions Club is rewarding, and he knows working by the river is personally beneficial.

“I really enjoy my job. I enjoy the fact that I can make a decent living and still help a whole lot of people,” Jalufka said. “We open at 10 … I try to get here at nine so I can sit on my butt for about 10 or 15 minutes and just watch the river go by.”