Jupiter fifth-graders collect trading cards for contest
By Michelle Kaplan
Special to Neighborhood Post
JUPITER — Babe Ruth’s got one. So does Joe DiMaggio, Carl Yastrzemski, Derek Jeter and Jupiter Police Officer Joseph Beialich. Each has his face on a coveted trading card.
A card with Ruth’s mug might fetch $20,000, but a complete set of 14 Jupiter police trading cards will reap one lucky fifth-grader a real windfall Saturday at the Jupiter Jubilee: a Nintendo Wii.
“We wanted to come up with a way to enhance our position in the community, our interaction with our youth,” said Sgt. Scott Pascarella of the contest, which is open to fifth graders at all five Jupiter-area elementary schools.
“What better way to develop that involvement then to get kids interested in trading cards?”
The students have been acquiring the cards either by asking an officer for one or answering weekly trivia question’s on the department’s website, www.jupiter.fl.us/jpd.
Once they’ve collected all 14, they’ve turned them into the department’s headquarters, which enters them in the Wii raffle. The winner will be announced during Saturday’s Jubilee, outside the town community center at Indiantown Road and Military Trail. Second- and third-place winners will receive gift cards.
The 14 cards depict either an officer or a police dog. For Officer Beialich, seeing his own face on a trading card for the first time was, “interesting a little quirky.”
While the backs of baseball cards tout statistics, the backs of these trading cards inspire kids to aim high.
“Family first,” Beialich’s card says. “Trust your instincts, treat people with respect and follow through with your goals.”
Officer Dawn Neita’s card speaks volumes about being an officer: “When you help someone to see their worth and value, it increases yours.”
Police and school officials hope the contest helps the students build what Cynthia Kelly, a fifth-grade teacher at Jerry Thomas Elementary School, called a “more personal” relationship with the officers and “a good foundation for when the kids go onto middle and high school.”
Collecting the cards gives kids an excuse to approach an officer and start a conversation. It also gives the officer instant face recognition. These are the same officers working in their neighborhoods and visiting their schools.
“It gives them a good sense that the police are there to help them if they need assistance or just to talk,” said Ann Wark, the principal at Jerry Thomas.
Said Pascarella: “The biggest thing we want the kids to understand is that we’re approachable. Some kids are a little fearful of law enforcement, and we don’t want that.”
Fifty students have already turned in their cards as of Jan. 20 and are entered to win the competition, which began in September. Among the competitors are Joshua Lopezcarim, 10; Sadie Watson, 11; Victoria Einkauf, 10; and Peter Derderian, 10. All are fifth-graders at Jerry Thomas, and all agree the hardest card to find is Titan, a K-9.
The students have taken the process of meeting the officers and gathering the cards seriously. Kelly points to Sadie, one of her students, as an example.
“She’s proud of the fact that she has all her cards and keeps them in special place in her backpack. It’s like her treasure,” Kelly said. “These kids don’t trade them. They treasure them.”
Joshua said he learned something along the way.
“I would picture a police officer as someone who catches bad guys, but they do small things for the community that I never knew, like how they help kids,” he said.
So what’s next for the Jupiter Police Department? Perhaps a set of action figures?
“Maybe bobble heads,” Pascarella laughed.
For more information visit, www.jupiter.fl.us/jpd/Contest.cfm .
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Things That Go Bump in the Night
Whispers about the Lake Worth Playhouse being haunted have been going on for generations. The likely cause is the unusual story of the Oakley brothers who built the playhouse back in 1924. One brother committed suicide, the other died on the very same day, one year later. Coincidence? Maybe, but that’s all it takes to start a good ghost story.
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Retired executive Ed Ostrowski, 74, of Delray Beach, gets his intellectual satisfaction from working for an organization that keeps seniors in the technology loop.
Since 1995, Ostrowski has been involved with SeniorNet and currently serves as the Boynton Beach chapter’s president. “We teach senior citizens to communicate with their grandchildren by sending e- mail,” he said.
SeniorNet teaches about 1,000 to 1,500 students a year and replaces its equipment about every two years, Ostrowski said.
The chapter has 70 volunteers. Elaine Gronert, 70, is one of them. She has taken computer classes for seven years. “I’ve taken just about every class that they teach,” she said.
Gronert became such an accomplished computer user that she now coaches classes.
Continue reading SENIORNET UNLOCKS WORLD OF COMPUTERS 1,000 TO 1,500 STUDENTS A YEAR ARE GETTING CHAPTER AND VERSE IN HIGH TECHNOLOGY THROUGH PROGRAM….
MUSICIANS GUILD HITS A HIGH NOTE
Jill Gilbert was shopping when she saw a group of musicians. Taking a seat in the audience, she began to sing along. Before she knew it, she was invited up to sing with the group.
IT’S MUSIC TO THE EARS FROM FOLK, BLUEGRASS, COUNTRY AND WESTERN, ROYAL PALM BEACH GUILD IS UP AND ROLLING ALONG
Jill Gilbert was shopping at the Wellington Mall when she sighted a group of musicians. Taking a seat in the audience, she began to sing along. Before she knew it, she was invited up to sing with the group.
Now she’s a member of the Royal Palm Beach Musicians Guild.
“It’s fun for me,” said Gilbert, 39, who lives west of Boca Raton. “I like to sing, it’s fun to be singing along with people, and I like to get other people to sing.”
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International Polo Club Palm Beach is going to reapply for directional signs off Interstate 95 and Florida’s Turnpike, after a history of polo clubs in Wellington being denied signs by the state.
The Florida Department of Transportation denied the latest sign request, made in December 2005, saying new criteria for signs for limited-access facilities have to be within five miles of the interchange, and that the polo club is about 11.5 miles away, according to a letter from traffic studies project manager Julio Alegre.
“Furthermore, the subject interchange is currently under construction, and is already cluttered with destination guide signs,” the letter said.
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In a dimmed room of the Peter Blum Family YMCA of Boca Raton, doodles come to life, dancing on the classroom wall, grooving to music, speaking in the voices of their creators.
Art classes aren’t just about crayons, paint and clay here. In an age where the lines are blurred between technology and art, children are learning to think about art in different ways. Best of all, it’s not coming from a book or a lecture, it’s completely hands-on.
“I like drawing. Usually, when I’m in class, I draw when I’m not supposed to, like on tests and stuff,” said Jeanette Billups, 12, of Boca Raton. “I thought it would be cool to come to this art class to learn some more stuff, not just the stuff I already know.”
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Things seem to be clicking for Larry Diou, 86, of Shady Woods in Delray Beach.
A relatively new member of the Delray Camera Club, he won second place in “Vibrant Delray,” the club’s annual members’ showcase.
Diou used his camera to capture a popular city restaurant and inn, The Sundy House.
His prize photo, Gazebo at Sundy House, is of a pristine white gazebo on the edge of a peaceful pond, peeking out behind a dense wall of vegetation.
“It’s a part of Delray that not many people know about,” Diou said. “It’s right in the center of town, but you wouldn’t know it existed.”
Continue reading CAMERA CLUB CAPTURES LIFE ON LOCAL LEVEL MEMBERS’ WORKSHOWN AT CITY HALL…
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When Irene Berkey moved to Boca Raton 25 years ago, she left behind a lifetime’s worth of close-knit friends and family for a place where she knew virtually no one.
Missing the Jewish culture she left behind, Berkey went looking for that same connection, but there weren’t as many Jewish people living in the area then.
“It was difficult finding other people to be with,” Berkey said.
UNITY SCHOOL HELPS CHILDREN IN GHANA
When Austin Gossett-Seidman, 11, of Boca Raton, needed money to help needy children a world away, he went cushion diving in his living room and turned up $90.
“They raided our whole house. If every family did that, you can come up with some pretty decent money,” said Austin’s mom, Peggy Gossett-Seidman, public relations director of Unity School in Delray Beach and mother to three students participating in the special project.
The school packed up two crates, big enough to fit three SUVs, with 10,000 pounds of humanitarian aid for children in Ghana, in West Africa.
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The Magic of Pendragons
Don’t Blink.
Because in .24 seconds, something amazing will happen.
The Pendragons, a husband and wife magician team, hold the world’s record for morphing. In the blink of an eye, Charlotte Pendragon becomes Jonathan Pendragon. What else would one expect from a married couple of magicians other than the ability of one spouse to make the other disappear?
It’s a feat many would like to duplicate, but this couple has mastered the illusion. They even hold the Guinness Book of World Records title to prove it.
They’ve topped the master.
“Harry Houdini did it in three seconds,” said Charlotte.
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