Spirit Of Lewisville

Spirit

The City of Lewisville presents an annual Spirit of Lewisville award to a person and or business whose interactions with the City have gone beyond usual expectation and produced life-changing results.

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In a press release, the City stated, “Lewisville residents and organizations frequently work alongside city employees on projects benefiting the community. This can happen through volunteer programs, even partnerships, social service agreements, board and committee appointments, and other arrangements, both formal and informal.”

The Spirit of Lewisville award was created “to recognize individuals or groups that worked closely with city staff on a significant project, exceeding usual expectations one might have of a volunteer or a social service agency, and that produce exceptional results that directly benefitted one or more members of the Lewisville community.” Out of all of the 2021 honorees “that helped attain outcomes that likely could not have been accomplished by the City without their help”, Old Town business Bendt Distilling Company along with Denton County local, Salai Lian, took home the award.

Bendt Distilling Company is located in a former Piggly Wiggly grocery store on Charles Street. This local business has become a prominent fixture in our local Old Town Lewisville community for residents and visitors alike. The owners of Bendt Distilling Company and Old Town Lewisville residents, Ryan and Natasha DeHart, are active members of the downtown business community. Before the global pandemic, Bendt Distilling Company was one of the most popular venues in Old Town Lewisville. But much like most people and businesses during this pandemic, the virus brought great challenges for this Denton County local business. Social distancing and business restrictions caused the business to close its doors to the public for much of the year.

Although owners Ryan and Natasha DeHart had to close the doors to their

Lewisville

by Caylie Howard | photos courtesy of Bendt Distilling Co social media page & Salai Z T Lian social media page

business, they did not close their hearts to the needs of their community. They saw a community in dire need of help and supplies and decided to convert their whiskey production line to begin making hand sanitizer. Ryan and Natasha offered their product free to public health and public safety officials in Denton County, including Lewisville police and fire departments. The DeHarts also decided to offer free hand sanitizer to individual residents of the local community during the early days of the pandemic when sanitizer was in high demand and was sold out in most of our stores.

This good deed for our community did not come with -out great sacrifice. The conversion of whiskey to hand sanitizer meant that the business would miss an entire season of producing its commercial products. It also led to significant cleaning and repair costs for the company’s production equipment.

By setting aside the company’s own financial interest to come to the aid of our local Denton County community,

Ryan and Natasha DeHart addressed a dire need in their community and provided greatly appreciated support to their city’s workers while also providing essential services to the community. Visit us at 225 S. Charles St., Lewisville, TX 75057.

Another Spirit of Lewisville Award winner, Salai Lian, has been doing incredible things for the City of Lewisville for many years now. “Becky Nelson of Chin Community Ministries recommended

Salai Lian as someone who could help educate City employees about the Chin culture and could translate City documents into Hakha Chin,” the press release said.

Salai Lian has done many incredible things for the community for the past few years, “but his greatest contribution came in mid2020 under very challenging circumstances.” The staff of the City of Lewisville was informed that there was a potential outbreak of

COVID-19 within the Chin community. “Language and cultural barriers were interfering with important messages about recommended health protocols and the importance of testing and treatment.”

Testing was difficult for many members of the community as they were not able to take time off of work or they lacked the transportation to distant testing sites. “Salai was a key member of a small team that worked with Denton County Health Services to arrange for two testing events near Chin neighborhoods and churches.” Salai talked with community pastors to spread awareness of COVID-19 with their congregation while also arranging to have volunteers at the testing events to help with translation and other needs. “Salai’s willing and eager assistance likely saved many Chin residents from serious illness, and possibly saved lives.”