{"id":60694,"date":"2026-01-05T20:20:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=60694"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:20:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:20:50","slug":"william-dunn-takes-kids-fishing-and-gives-them-gear-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/01\/05\/william-dunn-takes-kids-fishing-and-gives-them-gear-for-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"William Dunn takes kids fishing and gives them gear for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Polk County resident William Dunn is dedicated to helping kids get a chance to go fishing. It\u2019s something he does all year, but especially this year for Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunn spent countless hours traveling from home to home to hand out fishing gear to underserved kids. He was able to purchase the gear because of a generous donation to his Take a Kid Fishing<\/a> nonprofit. Dunn hoped to reach more than 200 children.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere is so much tackle in here, the boys are going to love it,\u201d Dunn said as he went through the fishing gear in his pickup. In this case, he was preparing to deliver it to Elissa Staff\u2019s boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s for you, Jacob. And here\u2019s a spin rod and reel combo for you guys,\u201d said Dunn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is awesome,\u201d Staff said as she watched Dunn hand out the gear. \u201cHe is sharing his joy and sharing love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunn said he got his love of fishing from his father, Joe. They started fishing together in Miami when Dunn was a boy, and they continued fishing together until his father died several years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunn regularly takes groups of kids on fishing outings, sometimes for freshwater fishing and sometimes offshore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just gives them patience,\u201d said Dunn. \u201cIt gets them outdoors and off the computer and off the tablets and phones. I can get them out about 5 miles offshore where there is no phone service, and all they have is a fishing rod in their hand and the joy for the day catching fish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunn conducts an annual fishing event for kids with Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dunn also delivered fishing gear to Hanna Collier\u2019s boys. She was dealing with a serious autoimmune disorder, and said the Christmas gifts were a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when I got sick, we couldn\u2019t do these things anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cThen somebody giving me this is a big blessing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is pretty much my ministry on the weekends with these kids,\u201d said Dunn, who has a full-time job as a tire salesman. \u201cTaking them out and showing them life skills. That there are still people out here who still care and want to spend time with them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County resident William Dunn is dedicated to helping kids get a chance to go fishing. It\u2019s something he does all year, but especially this year for Christmas. Dunn spent… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"5427","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDFcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMjAyNi0wMS0wNVQyMDA3MjguMDAxLndlYnA_Zml0PTUyOCUyQzQxOSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IldpbGxpYW0gRHVubiB0YWtlcyBraWRzIGZpc2hpbmcgYW5kIGdpdmVzIHRoZW0gZ2VhciBmb3IgQ2hyaXN0bWFzIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.hcFlTbFU61rNYK_DLon7xcLEAHWYYOYXMlAtwhkiZs4MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60695,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-05T200728.001.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[5427],"tags":[13108],"class_list":["post-60694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kindness-in-the-community","tag-william-dunn-takes-kids-fishing-and-gives-them-gear-for-christmas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60697,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60694\/revisions\/60697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}