{"id":16164,"date":"2012-11-28T09:54:22","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=16164"},"modified":"2012-11-28T09:57:10","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:57:10","slug":"make-a-difference-day-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2012\/11\/make-a-difference-day-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Make A Difference Day 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><strong>Event Recap<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/lehigh-acres-community-council-news\/make-a-difference-day\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11923\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-11923\" title=\"Make a Difference day\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Make-a-Difference-day.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Make-a-Difference-day.jpg 225w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Make-a-Difference-day-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>On October 27<sup>th<\/sup> 2012 Lehigh Acres participated and celebrated its first annual Make A Difference Day. This event was spearheaded by the Lehigh Acres Community Initiative in partnership with Park and Recreation, Kiwanis of Lehigh Acres, Sweetbay and many dedicated community volunteers. The event is linked to the national recognized program sponsored by USA Weekend, Hands On Network, Point of Light Institute and Newmans Own. The program encourages civic responsibility and unity in communities to devote a selfless project to benefit others.\u00a0 We had over 20 project participating and over 1200 residents attending some of the projects are as follows:<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Love the Children toiletry drive with partnerships between the Lee County School District and residents of Lehigh Acres to collect toiletries for the local homeless youth that are attending our local schools. We have over 1400 county wide with close to 400 in Lehigh Acres<\/li>\n<li>Youth Literacy Book Drive to collect and redistribute books to all ages of children who came out to the Make A Difference Day celebration at Veterans Park. Over 500 books were collected prior to the event\u00a0 and distributed at the event<\/li>\n<li>Community Beautification with over 175 participants joining together\u00a0 with the Lehigh Acres Community Initiative to rid the area of litter to enhance the visual appearance of our roadways. We also were able to have our Sheriff\u2019s Departments VOICE Volunteers on hand to do approx 150 child ID kits for the parents<\/li>\n<li>Red Cross was able to provide information to students on how they can be prepared in case of disaster as well as good hygiene tips.<\/li>\n<li>Boys and Girls Club of Lee County provided safe fun atmosphere and entertainment for kids free of charge and gave away tons of prizes!<\/li>\n<li>The First Congregational Church of Lehigh Acres provided small pumpkins for every family to enjoy for the upcoming holiday.<\/li>\n<li>Lehigh Acres Fire Department handed out information and small fireman hats to all the kids about Fire Safety and Awareness<\/li>\n<li>Swim Florida came out along with Lehigh Acres Pool committee to sell baked goods with all proceeds going to enhance the swim experience and purchase additional life vests at the Lehigh Acres Pool off of Williams Road. Swim Florida displayed a variety of information pertaining to swimming as well as drowning prevention awareness literature.<\/li>\n<li>Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office was rallying support for Neighborhood Watches as well as distributing personal safety materials.<\/li>\n<li>Lehigh Community Services held 2 food distribution dates which was able to send groceries home with over 600 families<\/li>\n<li>Sweetbay of Lehigh Acres donated and cooked 500 hotdog lunches at the evenLehigh Acres Community Council hosted a personal hygiene drive to assist the local homeless with toiletriesLocal Boy scout Troop 720 held fundraiser and collected donations to rehab a house for an elderly man in Lehigh AcresRotary Club of Lehigh Acres in partnership with Coldwell banker beautified the exterior of a home in Lehigh and gave it to Lehigh Acres Community Services to sell and use the proceeds to These are some of the projects that were showcased at the October 27<sup>th<\/sup> event.\u00a0 This has intrigued many residents to get more involved in service projects in the future with the expectation of changing the quality of life in Lehigh Acres one person at a time.\u00a0help the underserved in Lehigh Acres<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Local musicians came out and played for the crowds along with Footnotes Dance studio performing several shows at various times. Parks and Recreation hosted a Costume Contest and trick or treating hour for the kids, hayrides sponsored by Horse Naturally and Kiwanis of Lehigh Acres, bounce houses from My Cheap Party rentals in Lehigh Acres, and many visual attractions for kids by the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office Agricultural Division, K-9, Public Service Division, Crash Car etc.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to those organizations for assisting in making a very successful event.<\/p>\n<p>Next year\u2019s event will be held on October 26, 2013. The planning committee has already started working on next years goals and is always looking for new attendees to get hands on as well.<\/p>\n<p>We will meet the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> Tuesday of the month from 9-10 a.m. at 1301 Homestead Rd. Lehigh Acres Fl. 33936. Please feel free to join us and bring a canned good to donate to the monthly community food drive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Event Recap On October 27th 2012 Lehigh Acres participated and celebrated its first annual Make A Difference Day. This event was spearheaded by the Lehigh Acres Community Initiative in partnership&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}