Winter Garden Magazine November 2016 | Page 11

** ** * celebrating our VFW Winter Garden Magazine recently took a field trip to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) hall at 1170 E. Plant Street, and are so glad that we did. Our original intent was to find a veteran or two to interview, but we found out that this VFW was a living, breathing place that accommodated school kids in the afternoon to give them a safe place to hang out, had activities for adults, and was right there in the thick of it in Winter Garden. Fiona was such a gracious host, and presented a problem to us – so we decided that needed to be the focus. You see, there are scholarships to be had, and awards for teachers to be given, and very few people are taking advantage of this. If you have (or are) a middle school or high school student, you should be going for these scholarships. If you or your kids have a teacher that care about America from grades kindergarten through high school, there are awards to win. If you are in high school or know someone who is that’s an artist, there are contests to enter and prizes to win. Please check out the websites below, get the information and make it happen! And a special thank you to Fiona at the VFW hall for bringing all of this to our attention. www.vfw.org Patriot’s Pen writing competition for middle schoolers ($5,000 scholarship) Voice of Democracy patriotic speech writing competition for high schoolers ($30,000 scholarship) Smart/Mather VFW National Citizenship Education Teacher Award – nominations must be submitted by February 15th ($1000 in professional development for winning teachers and $1000 to their school) Creative Patriotic Art Awards Student Deadline March 31st (top prize ($10,000) NOVEMBER 2016  |  WINTER GARDEN MAGAZINE   |  11