By STLSportsPage.com
Last week we gave them a shoutout in our newsletter and this week we want to tell you more about The Villages Cardinals Nation. They have about 400 members and meet once a month at the Villages in Florida to talk about their favorite thing and something they all have in common: The St. Louis Cardinals.
” Cardinals Nation was formed in 2016,” said group president Bruce Wolfe. “I have been president from the beginning. It is fun to get together with Cardinal fans from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas, and further away, even Germany.”
Many of the member have retired to the Villages from St. Louis and others split their time between their home in Florida and Missouri. Some are not even from St. Louis but have been Cardinals fans.
“The club represents Cardinal fans from about a dozen states,” said Wolfe.
Mike Neumann, the program chairman for the group schedules fun activities and speakers. We were fortunate to be asked to speak one year and this year they will be having Stan McNeal of Cardinals Magazine.
Neumann and his wife Jeri, as well as Wolfe and his wife Glenda are very active and really enjoy the activities and the camaraderie that being a Cardinals fan and being in a group together brings.
“The photo above is from a dinner meeting where everyone is totally engrossed with the speaker, Rob Rains,” Wolfe joked.
The Villages Cardinals Nation club is also a generous group. When Rains was the speaker, they made a donation to Rainbows for Kids. The photo, left shows Neumann and Wolfe presenting a check for the charity.
A few quick facts about the Villages Cardinal Nation from Neumann:
- Our website is Our website is https://cardinalsnation.us/default.html
- With over 400 members, we believe we are the largest Cardinals fan club outside St. Louis.
- We go to at least one Spring Training game as a group to Roger Dean Stadium. We rent a bus and others drive. We usually get group tickets for 75 + people.
- Glenda Wolfe is our membership chairman, so anyone interested in joining can contact her: gwolfe929@gmail.com
- Our activities include meetings every 2-3 months, a golf scramble, spring training game in Jupiter, Cardinals bingo night, a golf cart parade on opening day and Bird Watching at Gators throughout the season.
If you know of other Cardinals fan in-person groups like The Villages Cardinals Nation let us know. They are the largest and most active of any we know about.
Photo of the group by their bus with group tickets to a Spring Training game.
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