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exceptional gift by Justin Kline | Staff Writer
Wells donates festival parking funds
Wells Memorial Funeral Home enjoys a partnership with Dover-based Willis Peters Exceptional Center, raising upwards of $10,000 per year with Florida Strawberry Festival parking services. For anyone who ever wondered if those people who offer parking at their businesses and homes during the Florida Strawberry Festival make good money, the answer is yes. Just ask the staff and students of Willis Peters Exceptional Center. Every year, the students and staff of the school join forces with Wells Memorial Funeral Home, just down the street from the festival, and use the funeral home’s lot to park cars to raise some money to help improve lives. “The students are very fortunate,” Rebecca Nance, an
elementary teacher, said. “Everyone’s very dedicated to the students. It’s our only big fundraiser that we do each year. Wells doesn’t take a cut of the money. They donate every penny to the school.” Nance knows what kind of impact this makes. She’s been working behind the scenes for years to make sure everything runs smoothly and has seen every penny go to a good cause. According to Wells Director Verna McKelvin, the school has generated tens of thousands of dollars of revenue from the parking lot. Last year, Wells
confirmed the school raised about $12,000. The partnership officially began in 2008. Before then, it was just a one-family deal: A student lived behind Wells, and his father started opening up the yard for parking to raise money for teacher Phoebe Irby’s class. According to Nance, the neighbors soon learned of this and volunteered their properties for the cause. When McKelvin heard about it, she and the funeral home were happy to loan their empty lot at no charge. “The lot’s empty during the festival, and I struggled to man
it,” she said. “I thought it would be a great relationship.” Students and staff from the school work in the lot at all times during the festival, and the students get a good work experience out of it in addition to the benefits they reap from the funds raised. “They wave in cars, hand out cards, make change,” Nance said. “We like to get them involved with hands-on life skills and understand where the money comes from — what their time is going toward.” Open Road Trailers also donates a trailer for the students and staff to store their equip-
RELAY FOR LIFE by Amber Jurgensen | Managing Editor
Angels Among Us
Megan Carpenter died from cancer in 2006, but her memory lives on through the Plant City Relay’s luminaria ceremony and princess tent. The lights fell. The music started. Dana Carpenter’s phone died. She didn’t think much of it as Alabama took the stage. The memories were in the packed stadium of the Florida Strawberry Festival, and not on some lighted, plastic screen. And her 11-year-old daughter, Megan, was under good care. Her older brother, Chad was watching her at their country home. But with each changing chord of the guitar, Chad was trying to reach her. The band launched into a song: Oh, I believe there are angels among us. Voicemail. Sent down to us from somewhere up above. Voicemail. They come to you and me in our darkest hours. Chad hung up the phone and rushed to his sister’s side. She was convulsing. She was unresponsive. The ambulance came. It took her away. All the lights in the house were on when Dana Carpenter pulled into the driveway of the house. When she entered, her children didn’t come to her. And then she saw there was a message on the recorder. Chad’s voice was shaking in a panic. They were at the hospital. Chad had been her angel. Megan suffered more seizures at the hospital before she was transferred from Plant City to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. After the family was reunited, all they could do was wait for an answer. Megan loved the Florida Strawberry Festival. So her mother knew she wasn’t feeling well when Megan decided she wasn’t going to the concert that night. Did that have something to do with what was happening to her? The doctors did test after test. They asked question after question. Megan had gained some weight earlier in the year. They had to keep letting out her evening gown for the Junior Royalty Pageant the month before. And her usually flawless skin had started to be speckled with acne. Was it just coming of age and hormones? Several days went by, and the doctors gathered the family around a table. They knew it was serious. Megan had adrenal cortical carcinoma, a rare cancer the hospital had never treated before. There was no known cure. Her prognosis was bleak: just a few months. Carpenter stood up and backed away from the table. “I am not going to accept this,” Carpenter said. “This is unacceptable.” There was modern medicine. There were doctors. But Carpenter believed something more powerful was going to help save her daughter: prayer. Megan survived for five more years on that power. And in those five years, she became an angel to many.
ment during the festival. Wells might not take a cut of the money, but the funeral home has been showered with cards from well-wishing students, staff and parents, and the kids even made a plaque one year as a thank-you — a plaque that the funeral home is proud to have on display. As for the school, the money goes to help students of need in all areas. Everything from school supplies to winter coats are covered, and McKelvin said the school was also able to use some of the money to build a handicap-accessible playground.
ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Willis Peters Exceptional Center, located at 2919 Nelson Ave., Dover, is a public exceptional school that serves students 3 to 22 who have intellectual disabilities. The school, which is right next to Dover Elementary, runs a PreK-12 program with a four-year transition program to help the older students adjust to life outside of school. It currently employs 50 staff members, and has 90 students. For more information, call (813) 757-9462.
With the way things have been going, Wells and Willis Peters don’t plan on splitting up any time soon. “It looks like it’s going to continue to be a long relationship,” McKelvin said. Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
education by Catherine Sinclair | Staff Writer
Student ‘cleans up’ at invention competition
A fifth-grader from Walden Lake Elementary School placed in the top 10 in the USF Young Innovator Competition.
Amber Jurgensen
Dana Carpenter keeps her daughter’s memory alive through Plant City’s Relay for Life.
REMEMBER A LOVED ONE
To purchase a luminaria, current Relay participants can contact their team captain for a form. Those who are not registered with a team can come visit us at the Plant City Relay Rally at 6 p.m. March 23 at Plant City’s First Baptist Church on the south third floor, 503 N. Palmer St. Find the luminaria station for more information. You can also purchase them on the day of the event, April 10, at the luminaria tent on the south end of the field. Luminaria monies are a donation directly to your team of any amount. At the event, you can decorate the bag however you’d like. For any other questions, contact britneykoch@mail.usf.edu or (813) 716-7947.
PRINCESSES AND ANGELS
The princess tent at Relay for Life is perhaps the most popular booth on the grounds of the Plant City High School stadium. The school’s cosmetology department organizes it, painting the nails and faces of all the little girls who come through. At the end, the Florida Strawberry Queen waves her wand over them and recites a magical blessing. The tent is in honor of Megan. “She would hate it,” Carpenter said. Megan didn’t like to talk about her cancer. She went through three rounds of chemotherapy and eleven surgeries. She lost her hair in gobs on her pillow. She refused to wear a wig, because it wasn’t her. And she didn’t like to watch the younger children go into treatment because she knew what lay ahead. But Megan was the way she was because she was resilient and and selfless. Instead of a wig, she had a baseball cap to match every outfit. She denied an offer from the Make-AWish Foundation because she wanted other children to have the chance to make their own. And she stayed connected to her faith and church fam-
ily, and helped others do the same. “Megan touched a lot of people with her faith,” Carpenter said. “She brought everyone else up.” It’s evident that Megan was known everywhere she went. From flying with a baseball cap on the Plant City Dolphins cheer team to a standing ovation at a Junior Royalty Pageant she competed in two days after finishing radiation, everyone found Megan to be an inspiration. “The doctors used to say, ‘We don’t know why she’s still kicking,’” Carpenter said. She had a reason to be. “She changed a lot of kids’ hearts who were going astray,” Carpenter said. “She was the chosen one. Even though I would rather have her here.” But now that she’s gone, the angel herself is still changing lives.
LUMINARIA
At every Relay for Life ceremony around the world, the lights shut off for a special moment no one can forget. Participants decorate bags in memories of those who have died from cancer. In Plant City, a candle is placed inside each one that dots the track, turn-
ing the stadium into a glowing circle of faith and support. There is a moment of silence. And then a slideshow to remember all the faces who have gone. It is hard to find a dry eye in the crowd. “The luminaria ceremony is so important to Relay because of its symbolism,” Britney Koch, luminaria chair, said. “The luminaria handbook says this about the ceremony’s purpose and symbolism: ‘The luminaria ceremony is a ceremony of remembrance and hope. It symbolizes a time to grieve for those we have lost, to reflect on our own cancer experience or that of those closest to us, and to find hope that tomorrow holds the promise of a cancer-free world.’” For Carpenter, it’s a touching moment. “(After your loved one dies) if you sit alone by yourself, you can get down,” Carpenter said. “But when you’re around people who go through the same thing … it’s a healing.” A large portion of Plant City’s luminarias are decorated for Megan. Her friends gather, still wearing their pink ”Our Angel in Heaven” bracelets, and some with their own daughters who have visited the princess tent. Chad is now a Plant City police officer. His friends join in during the night to support him. “You don’t even know some of these people and her name will be on (their luminarias),” Carpenter said. “It’s so sad, but it’s amazing that she’s touched so many.” The Alabama song is never far from Carpenter’s mind. Oh I believe there are angels among us. To show us how to live, to teach us how to give. To guide us with the light of love.
The emphasis on STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — has been growing in educational institutions in recent years because of the current and future demand for workers in these industries. Thanks to a local competition sponsored by University of South Florida, students in Plant City have been encouraged to follow their technological dreams and change the world with new ideas. USF sponsors the Young Innovator Competition for students in grades three through eight. Sandy VanOosten, who teaches gifted math and science for multiple grades at Walden Lake Elementary School, requires her students to enter the contest. Throughout the year, she carries out the theme of the science of invention in a number of additional ways in her classroom, such as research projects and guest speakers. “(Because) children are always so curious, it’s natural for them to come up with inventions,” VanOosten said. Sixty-three students from Walden Lake entered the Young Innovator Competition this year, and seven placed in the top 50. But one fifth-grader in VanOosten’s class, Zachary Shinneman, excelled even further and was a finalist in the top 10. His invention addressed some of his concerns for safety and environmental protection. One day, Shinneman and his family were driving down the highway, and he saw something that disturbed him. He noticed the abundance of debris on the side of the road, and asked his mother, Tricia Shinneman, who was responsible for cleaning it up. She explained to him that volunteers or workers who are paid in tax dollars usually walk along the roadsides to clean. “I thought that seemed kind of dangerous,” Shinneman said. The idea for the Highway Sweeper was born. Shinneman used engineering software to design a truck that collects roadside debris without putting pedestrian workers at risk. He later discovered this was
LOCAL SEMI-FINALISTS
These students from Plant City-area schools placed in the top 50: Christian Bentrovato, Beef Bubbles for Dogs Crystal Estrada, No Bugs About It Andrew MacDonald, Water Wake Up Call Annabelle Salveson, Hourglass Stop Light Andrew Smith, Automatic Washer Carson Sweat, Safe-T-Wallet Aidan Marino Vaughan, Powered Pet Feces Remover Case Watson, Lighter and Wick Cutter an even more important issue: Last year, 13 people died in Florida as a result of being hit while cleaning along roadways. “I love the way Zachary saw a need that needed to be fulfilled to protect our environment and to make collecting trash on the road more concise and precise,” VanOosten said. Shinneman designed a 4-foot-long prototype of his invention. As a top 10 applicant, he also was required to give a presentation. The organizers of the Young Innovator Competition sent him and the nine other finalists to Home Shopping Network’s studio, where they worked with professionals and got feedback on their presentation skills. Shinneman gave his presentation on the Highway Sweeper and then received a medal and certificate at an awards ceremony Wednesday, Feb. 11 — Thomas Edison’s birthday — at USF. He also received a Bluetooth speaker and an annual family pass to MOSI. Shinneman expects to continue participating in theYoung Innovator Competition, even after he leaves VanOosten’s classroom. “He’s constantly thinking of things to improve or invent,” Tricia said. Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver. com.
Catherine Sinclair
Zachary Shinneman built a prototype of his invention, the Highway Sweeper.