{"id":43403,"date":"2019-06-13T11:21:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T15:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43403"},"modified":"2019-06-14T14:13:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T18:13:33","slug":"rain-barrel-painting-contest-winners-and-auction-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/06\/rain-barrel-painting-contest-winners-and-auction-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain Barrel Painting Contest winners and auction announced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On\nWednesday, June 5, the judging of Florida Governmental Utility Authority’s\nfirst Rain Barrel Painting Contest took place inside Lehigh Community Services\nconference room. The program, which was in its first year, is a coordinated\neffort between Lehigh Acres Community Services and FGUA. About 25-27 seniors\nattended the awards luncheon sponsored by McAlister’s Deli. This year’s winners\nwere Irma Estrella and Fara Dela Cruz who took first place and shared the\nprize, each receiving $125.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They\nboth worked on the same barrel and it was amazing. Irma gave a wonderful speech\nabout what it meant to her to participate in the program and Fara told us she was\njust getting over open heart surgery. Two very amazing ladies. They are both\nresiding at Presbyterian Homes,” Donna Lizotte, Community Service\nRepresentative on behalf of The Florida Governmental Utility Authority said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irma\nEstrella and Fara Dela Cruz took first place with “Old Town”\nCountryside theme. Irma expressed her heartfelt gratitude stating,” Thank\nyou to the FGUA, Lehigh Community Services and the Senior Center for creating\nevents like this one. I love painting, because when I am painting, the world\naround me changes. Senior people are happy when they are making something with\ntheir hands. Our minds are working well and we enjoy having something to do.\nThank you for the opportunity and for letting us join in this event excellent\njob!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nyear’s second place winners were Lenore Del Castillo and Roger Hall, who also\nworked on a barrel together- a manatee design theme and shared their prize\nreceiving $75 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third\nplace winners were Pat Franson and Linda Franks, who worked together on a fish\nand octopus design and shared their prize receiving $50 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto Donna Lizotte, this year was made possible by the great support of the\ncommunity and local businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A\ntotal of 14 seniors participated in the program this year and we had three judges.\nWe received great reviews and thanks from all the seniors who participated and\nthey were all asking about next year. We are also getting calls from folks in\nthe community who are interested in purchasing the barrels. The response from\nthe community and the support has really been amazing,” Lizotte said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flavia\nCanalda, the service coordinator at Presbyterian Homes, also played an integral\nrole in coordinating efforts with residents for the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This\nyear we raised $1,500 in revenue donated for the program. Lehigh Community\nServices will use these funds to provide assistance to seniors struggling to\npay water utility bills. We also received approximately $1,875 in in-kind\ndonations,” Lizotte said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carolyn Peplow, director of Lehigh Community Services will post the auction for the barrels online. Anyone interested in purchasing a rain barrel will have the opportunity to participate in an upcoming silent auction, which begins on Friday, June 14, at 8 a.m. All bidding will take place at\u00a0www.32auctions.com\/rainbarrel<\/a>. The bidding will officially end on Friday, June 21, at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, June 5, the judging of Florida Governmental Utility Authority’s first Rain Barrel Painting Contest took place inside Lehigh Community Services conference room. The program, which was in its… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43403"}],"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=43403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}