Ricky Cheramie and a few other volunteers with United Way of St. Charles had an idea. It was the fall of 2001, when companies and businesses in St. Charles Parish started their pacesetter campaigns to raise money for UWSC. The group of volunteers decided to organize a jambalaya cook-off to thank St. Charles Parish companies who participated in the fundraiser.
The Battle for the Paddle was born.
That year, 12 teams competed. Cheramie, an operations specialist with Valero at the time, cooked jambalaya with his team.
At this year’s event, 23 years later, 240 teams competed. And Cheramie was honored with the Ray Tyree Memorial Citizenship Award for his years of volunteering.
John Dias, executive director of UWSC, said the award is given to someone who has made the community and world a better place.
“We can’t think of anyone more deserving than Ricky,” Dias said. “[He] is a perfect fit for the award.”
The citizenship award is named after Ray Tyree, a longtime UWSC board member who died in 2021 at 66 years old. Dias said Tyree was a kind, community and family minded person.
Cheramie said Tyree was a mentor to him. They served on the UWSC board together.
“I think [Tyree] would be proud of me,” Cheramie said. “To get an award in his name is truly an honor. How could I even be mentioned in the same sentence as Ray Tyree? I looked up to him.”
When Cheramie, his wife, and their two children moved to St. Charles Parish from Slidell in 1997, Cheramie started volunteering. He coached his son’s basketball and baseball teams and volunteered with the UWSC and the St. Charles Parish Toy and Gift Fund.
“I felt like if I didn’t help, do I really belong to the community?” Cheramie said. “You have to earn your feeling of belonging.”
The community noticed Cheramie’s hours of volunteer work. The Rotary Foundation awarded him the Paul Harris Fellow Award and its Citizen of the Year Award in 2009. He earned the St. John United Way Community Leadership Award in 2018.
For many years, Cheramie helped organize the River Region Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament and the Ed Reed Foundation Golf Tournament. He also helped organize the post-game meals for the Destrehan High School vs. Hahnville High School football games. He was the Valero St. Charles Volunteer of the Year in 2005, 2011 and 2019, and he was the Valero Corporation Volunteer of the Year in 2005.
But Cheramie said his proudest accomplishments are the Battle for the Paddle and the St. Charles Parish Toy and Gift Fund, a toy giveaway for children of the parish. Retired Senior Volunteer Program helps organize the event each year in December.
Cheramie said he always knew the Toy and Gift Fund would grow to become a big event. When the event first started, organizers served cookies and punch. Last year, organizers served 5,000 plates of homemade jambalaya and gave out 5,000 toys.
“We took it to a new level,” Cheramie said. “That had a lot to do with me already being involved in it and just having a vision, and Valero saying the pocketbook is open. Go figure out what we can do to make this event fantastic.”
One year stands out to him – 2005. He said hosts of a New Jersey radio station sent tractor trailers full of toys and decorations for the Toy and Gift Fund.
“That year of Katrina, we really stepped it up,” Cheramie said. “We had a big BBQ trailer, we cooked 8,000 to 10,000 hot dogs and homemade chili. We had desserts and things for the kids.”
Cheramie said he never dreamed Battle for the Paddle would grow from 12 teams its first year to 240 teams this year.
“It’s because of what I helped create and helped start,” he said. “You don’t think about it like that when you’re doing it. You’re just doing it, and it just starts to take off.”
He said he is proud of the team of volunteers that the event brings together.
“We had a team of dedicated volunteers that always came in with good ideas and a can-do attitude and we made it all happen,” he said.
Volunteering has long been a part of Cheramie’s story. In 8th grade he won his school’s humanitarian award.
“I think it was just me knowing that I can make a difference, or try to make a difference,” he said.
