Category: Community News

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Broward’s ‘Hidden Heroes’ honored

Women from Parkland and Coral Springs were among a dozen Broward County residents recently honored as “Hidden Heroes,” by the Community Foundation of Broward.

These “Broward Nonprofit Hidden Heroes” were selected for helping their organizations to continue to provide valuable services to their clients and the community during the pandemic.

Tina Cortez, of Coral Springs, was honored for her work as Director of the Wildlife Hospital at the Sawgrass Nature Center & Wildlife Hospital, which also is in Coral Springs.

“Tina’s dedication to the animals is evident by the exceptional wildlife care and rehabilitation she provides,” said Robin Reccasina, CEO of the wildlife hospital.

“Tina designed a contactless drop off for the public to drop off injured animals at our gate and responded to every drop off herself. Having no volunteers, she quickly cross-trained other staff to assist in animal care. She transferred many of the animals that were most critical to her home so she could give them 24-hour care.”

Samantha “Sam” Kelly, of Parkland, was honored for her work as Vice President of Rehabilitation Programs at Lighthouse of Broward for the Blind & Visually Impaired in Fort Lauderdale.

“Sam provided vision and leadership,” said Ellyn Drotzer, CEO of Lighthouse. “We knew we had to pivot to an online platform, but our clients’ fundamental lack of sight made this seem almost impossible. Sam led the creative plan to provide uninterrupted rehabilitative services. We closed the building on Friday and by Monday, all of our programming was transformed into an electronic format and services were constructed using a web-based platform.”

Cortez and Kelly and their organizations are featured in a virtual awards presentation video via YouTube here:

 

Other Broward Nonprofit Hidden Heroes are:
–Timothy Curtin, Executive Director of
Community Services, Memorial Healthcare System, Hollywood

–Rebecca “Becky” Gould, STEM Center for Education and Career Development Manager, Museum of Discovery & Science, Fort Lauderdale

–Tammy Holder, Teaching Artist-in-Residence, Broward Performing Arts Foundation, Fort Lauderdale

–Xenia McFarling, Vice President of Rehabilitation Programs, LifeNet4Families, Fort Lauderdale

–Natasha McFarquhar, Emergency Basic Needs Navigator, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Broward County, Lauderhill

–Alex Nesar, Director of Construction, Habitat for Humanity of Broward, Fort Lauderdale

–Belinda Paulicin, Director of Program Services, Gilda’s Club of South Florida, Fort Lauderdale

–Sandra Powell, Regional Laboratory Manager, Broward Health, Fort Lauderdale

–Patricia “Pejay” Ryan, Director of Marketing, Broward Education Foundation, Fort Lauderdale

–Elise Samet, Volunteer Program Manager, Canine Assisted Therapy, Oakland Park

Each of the winners received a $500 award and a prize package that included a 2-night staycation at the Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel and gift certificates from multiple restaurants. In addition, each of their nonprofit organizations received a monetary award of up to $25,000. For more information, visit www.cfbroward.link/HiddenHeroes.

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Young Coral Springs golfer already a veteran

A veteran player on South Florida’s golf courses and winner of an impressive array of trophies and honors, including Gold Coast Golf Association’s 2020 Player of the Year award, Elijah Ritchie says the game still has a lot to teach him.

And at just 11 years old, the Coral Springs sixth-grader already has the skills, focus, and work ethic to meet the challenges.

Among his most recent tests? On a recent weekend outing at Crandon Golf Course, competing in a U.S. Kids Golf tournament in what was only his fourth time playing a full 18 holes, Ritchie had to come to grips with what to do about lunch.

“I was hungry, but mostly I was thirsty,” Ritchie said after that Saturday’s brutally hot and humid round in Key Biscayne, where hesat in fifth place after Round 1.

His dad, Jeremiah Ritchie, said he keeps Pedialyte handy for Elijah during tournament play. Over a 9-hole round, that’s enough to keep his son hydrated and strong both physically and mentally.

Elijah Ritchie, at five years old, carries his bag at City of Lauderhill Golf Course, where he was part of the city’s Fore Life youth golf program.

Ritchie started playing golf at four years old. His dad, a veteran coach who has worked with many area youth teams, said he got Elijah some lessons “so we could have something to do as a family, something to do when I get older.”

Elijah, it turned out, had something of a knack for golf.

“He’s so resilient and very focused,” Jeremiah Ritchie said.

Ritchie enrolled Elijah in a local youth golf program in Lauderhill, Fore Life, founded and run by Paula Pearson-Tucker, the city’s lead golf pro and an LPGA Teaching and Club Professional.

“I think I learned as much about the game from Coach Tucker as Elijah did,” Jeremiah Ritchie said.

Youth golf in South Florida can be a dizzying sprint across three counties as kids play as part of numerous leagues and loosely affiliated teams. Elijah currently is among the 18 11-year-olds playing for a Boca Raton Local Tour team that also features Charlie Woods, Tiger Woods’ son.

Boca Local, affiliated with U.S. Kids Golf, plays a six-tournament schedule from Sept. 19 through Oct. 25. Elijah also plays Junior Golf Association of Broward County tournaments, competing against kids as old as 14. He captured his first JGA tourney win at age 10 and since then has finished in the top three six times, with two victories — one of them in the three-day JGA Championship. He finished the JGA’s most recent season, from June 22 through July 27, atop the Boys B division, making him eligible to move up to Division A next season.

Of Gold Coast Golf Association’s nine- tournament schedule, which opens in September and runs through the next August, Elijah came away with three wins, four runner-up finishes, and one third-place finish in the Boys 9-10 division.

Elijah Ritchie, at age six, asleep after winning third place at the 2015 Junior Golf Association of Broward County tournament.

“It was a long season,” Elijah told the Sun Sentinel’s Gary Curreri after winning Player of the Year. The honor, he said, “didn’t really surprise me because I trained for it. I had it in my head when I was practicing.”

Elijah practices at least two hours a day, whether at Coral Springs Country Club’s course, Osprey Point Golf Course in Boca, or at home, in the backyard.

“He’s surprisingly disciplined, and already has a good work ethic,” his dad says, explaining Elijah gets in strength training in the morning before school, then is ready to hit the links after his classwork is done in the afternoon.

What Elijah loves most about the game is shaping his shots, and drawing and fading his shots. But after the rainout in Key Biscayne, he was perfectly zeroed in and content to get right with putting, getting to Coral Springs CC’s practice green in the afternoon that Sunday and playing the greens on the first few holes until the skies began to purple and the groundskeeper rousted everyone still on the course out.

“We don’t know how far he’ll go (with golf),” his dad said. “But for right now, he loves the game. He’s pretty good, and is still hungry to learn more.”

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Soliders without guns

Bravery, brav·ery | \ ‘brav-re the quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.

This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of World War II’s ending (1939-1945). So, this Veteran’s Day, I wanted to share what bravery looks like to me by honoring the service of the everyday young women who enlisted.

These are the lesser known heroes of WWII. The thousands of spirited souls who signed up not knowing what role they would play in what would become the deadliest conflict in human history, a war that involved over 30 countries, with over 70 million fatalities.

Congress instituted the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in May of 1942, which would later become the Women’s Army Corps. These women were known as WACs and they worked in more than 200 non-combatant positions stateside.

It wasn’t until three years after the end of WWII that women became a permanent fixture of the United States military services when the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948  law was passed.

Of the 350,000 women who served with the armed forces during World War II, it is estimated that only 14,500 of those women are still alive today. One of them turned ninety-nine years old this April during COVID-19, and I happen to love her immensely. She’s my grandmother.

Every so often my mind wanders to a place where Nana is grabbing my hand, swirling me around in the kitchen when I was still smaller than she, rousing her memory with wartime stories while humming The Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy [of Company B].”

She made wartime sound like the movies.

Over the years Doris “Nana” Clougher has relished in sharing countless stories about her life with me. During adolescence, she survived whooping cough, walking miles in brutal blizzards, the death of her father, and pencils in her Christmas stocking during The Great Depression.

When the war began in 1939 she was a small-town girl from Upstate New York who worked as an assistant clerk for the Massena Town Hall.

The United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.

Doris continued working for a time until she felt the need to make a difference. She was already receiving letters from her two younger brothers abroad (one a Navy pilot, the other a sailor.)

She enlisted in 1944. No one knew how long the war would last or whether we would win, but she was determined to join her brothers and make her contribution to the United States of America as a woman and a patriot. I grew up believing my grandmother was truly brave.

My grandmother remembers being frightened. She speaks of the fear she had leaving home for the first time. Basic training takes her to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia where she runs through tear-gas filled underground tunnels. The WACs were being prepared for the war to come to US soil.

When finished with basic training, Doris became a medical stenographer at Tilton General Hospital in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The hospital was administering rehabilitation and physiotherapy for injured and amputee soldiers. She made rounds with the doctors, recording what care the injured would need before returning home.

She met my grandfather, John Clougher, at Fort Dix, and they were married in the service before settling in New Jersey to raise their family.

After the war Doris was a loving and loved wife, a beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and collectively everyone’s “Nana.”

She was always well known for her Irish stew and cream puffs, but most of all for her perfect grandmotherliness.

Doris “Nana” Clougher

There aren’t enough words to describe how much my grandmother means to me. I learned almost everything I know in matters of heart, mind, and soul from her. I’m truly honored to share her humble story.

As much as she cherishes her family, she reveres her time in the service of her country as the most poignant of her life. I can just hear her saying proudly to me, “Aimo, I’m a WAC,” with a little salute.

She would have many personal triumphs and tribulations over the course of ninety-nine years, but no achievement or challenge as near and dear to her heart as her time with the United States Army.

The often marginalized, under-appreciated, and over- looked group of soldiers were no doubt the WACs of theWWII generation.

She was a small, blonde, blue-eyed farm girl from Upstate New York. She answered a call that inevitably changed her life.

So what does bravery look like to me? Bravery is stepping outside of your comfort zone and into a commitment and duty for the greater good. As did these often forgotten soldiers. As did Nana.

 

 

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Food trucks on the move again

While food truck festivals may be temporarily out of fashion due to the pandemic, many local trucks have regrouped, revamped, and are re-energized.

While restaurants were shuttered during Phase I and partially shuttered during Phase II here in Florida, the nature of food trucks allows them more flexibility tocontinue operating.

Rob Adler, (aka “The Weekend Concierge”) and founder of the websites Weekendbroward.com and FoodTrucksFortLauderdale. com promotes live music and local events with food trucks.

He says, “Food trucks are micro-businesses that are easy to start up, but have presented a challenge during the pandemic. There are still business opportunities in catering events or in “on-consignment,” but these can be economically risky because you don’t know how much food to purchase in advance.”

“Food trucks should be your mobile ad for a catering business or restaurant,” he says. “You need to be creative and make the right connections. Very few trucks can survive with only weekend events.”

“You can’t just park on the corner and think people will flock to your truck,” he says, noting that before the pandemic hit, 500 food trucks were registered between Miami and West Palm Beach. “You have to be a hustler.”

According to a recent economic census, 5,970 food trucks were operating nationwide in 2018, nearly double the 3,281 in 2013. The average sales per food truck establishment was $226,291, with average sales per employee at $86,212.

Along with California and Texas, Florida was in the top three in food truck sales in 2017 registering $98.3 million.

With numbers like this, it’s no wonder that buying, owning, and running a food truck is an appealing prospect to many.

Transplanted New Yorkers Peggie Ann Blain and her financé Bruno Maxino (aka Chef Max) have been running Bruno’s Catering Food Truck in the tri-county area for the past eight years.

Adler is their agent and Blain says, “Rob is a well-loved guy and very popular with the food truck set. He has a heart of gold and we all love and respect him.”

With an eclectic menu, “international meets New York flair,” it’s a selection anyone from any walk of life can taste and enjoy, says Blain.

Their signature dish is one Chef Max created – a griot burrito, combining flavors both from Haiti and Mexico with pulled pork, slaw vinaigrette, and black rice drizzled with a homemade 15-way honey mustard BBQ sauce.

In 2018 they won an award for the best food truck at the iHeartRadio awards for serving the freshest “eats on the streets.”

As part of their reinvention, Blain and Maxino plan to open a brick and mortar location on NE 13th St. in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.

They have provided catering to many essential hospital workers during the pandemic, including at Broward Health Medical Center and JFK Hospital in West Palm Beach.

Likewise, Coconut Creek residents Daniella and Michael Jaimes are first-time food truck operators. Owners of American Limo, they had the opportunity to branch out and purchase a new food truck and planned to start their Burger Town operations in mid-October.

While their specialty is Colombian burgers made with a pineapple sauce, onion, bacon, and a variety of dipping sauces, they will offer regular American-style cheese and bacon burgers as well as hot dogs and quesadillas.

Another specialty is their Colombian sweet corn, known as maicito, served with mozzarella cheese, potato sticks, and sauces.

“We will start with the basics and branch out from there,” says Danielle Jaimes.

Another husband and wife food truck team is the Mediterranean-themed Tornado Food owned by Natalia Navarro, a former medical office manager originally from Argentina and her husband Achraf Zariat, a former fl ight attendant for Tunisair.

The two met and married locally and decided to launch a business together.

“We wanted to be entrepreneurs,” says Navarro. “We had a restaurant in Miami that we closed due to the pandemic.”

With some financial assistance and $3,000, they were able to start their first food truck selling a tornado potato – a spiral cut potato on a stick fried to a golden brown and fully loaded with cheese sauce, bacon, etc.

Chef Max

Their specialty is the home-made potato along with lamb, chicken, or shrimp gyros. They make all their sauces, including hummus and tzatziki sauce.

They also operate a second truck offering mostly American style food, including Aloha hotdogs (hotdogs topped with pineapple, red onions, jalapeño, and a sweet ansour sauce), Tornado Mac & Cheese, and shredded beef sandwiches.

Pre-pandemic, they’ve traveled throughout the state to many events, including the NASCAR event in Homestead, Balloon Festivals such as the hot air glowing balloon festival in Orlando, Car and Coffee in West Palm Beach, and the Facetime. Lauderdale Air Show.

However, what Navarro says really draws the crowds is their “Dragon Breath,” a 16 oz. cup of giant fruity puffs, blasted with liquid nitrogen and covered in chocolate syrup, a favorite for kids who can blow out dragon breath, which sells for $10.

“The kids love it,” says Navarro. “Sometimes there are more than 50 kids in line, with no end in sight.”

“Food trucks are no longer a novelty,” says Navarro. “We’re two hard-working immigrants trying to make a living and doing our best. It’s a lot of work, but we’re happy.”

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‘The limit does not exist’

I attended K-12 in Coral Springs in the 80s and 90s. At Ramblewood Middle School, my assigned special subject was computers. We played a lot of Oregon Trail and Odell Lake and used primitive coding to create King Kong climbing up computer screens (yes, we actually stacked computer screens on top of each other).

My computers special was 100 percent boys. 100 percent boys! I remember asking my guidance counselor if I could change my special to peer counseling. For those who went to Ramblewood Middle School, the peer counselors put on a yearly show, “Just say no to drugs” to the song, Total Eclipse of the Heart – the pep rally was terrible and awesome at the same time. I was told I could not be a peer counselor because there were already too many girls signed up and they “needed me” in computers. This was an accepted trend growing up; boys were “needed” in technology and science while girls were “needed” in the soft sciences and arts.

Growing up, our teachers constantly preached, “You can be whatever you want when you grow up.” What they really meant to say was, “You can be whatever you want when you grow up … as long as it’s gender
appropriate.”

Fast forward to 2020.

Kristen Meis

Kristin Meis is the Engineering and Robotics Specialist at Park Trails Elementary. Kristin also serves as the school’s liaison for the Math and Science departments for the district. This year, Kristin was nominated for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science, after being awarded Teacher of the Year at Park Trails Elementary for the 2019-2020 school year. The Presidential Award is the highest recognition a teacher can receive in the United States.

The idea of a woman receiving the Presidential Award for Mathematics and Science, for Engineering and Robotics, nonetheless, may have seemed crazy to some 30 years ago. Science teachers were predominantly men. English teachers were predominantly women.

Now, because of trailblazers like Kristin, all children, both boys and girls, are encouraged to love STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) at a young age. Kristin resides in Parkland with her husband Rob and two children, Macy, 14 and RJ, 12. Kristin became a teacher in 1999 after graduating with her Master’s in Education from the University of Florida. Kristin accepted the Engineering and Robotics position at Park Trails last year after having been a classroom teacher there since 2013. She was excited about students solving problems (Kristin calls them “design challenges”) with not only their minds but with their hands.

She created her Engineering and Robotics lab with students in mind – shelves line one wall filled with materials students use throughout the year. Kristin encourages her students to use engineering and design processes — ask, imagine, plan, create, improve, and communicate — to solve problems. The materials wall serves to expand her students’ minds while providing them with limitless opportunities to find solutions. Students learn not by memorizing formulas, but by working through challenges in teams.

For example, during virtual learning, the intermediate grades created a “Helping Hand” for their design challenge using just straws, strings, and tape. This exercise led to an in-depth discussion between her students about different body systems, particularly the skeletal system and the 206 bones in their body. Her students learned about the 27 bones in each hand, 26 bones in each foot, and more.

In a world where children are on their devices for hours on end, Kristin challenges them to think creatively and “outside the box.” Kristin loves creating novel ways to teach her students while not relying on traditional textbooks. Like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel LaRusso (The Karate Kid, 1984), Kristin’s students may not even realize that she is arming them with life skills that will help them throughout their entire lives and in the workforce.

Kristin is an inspiration to all women who were ever told that STEM is a “boys world.” Girls can be whatever they want when they grow up. To use a science term, “They are bound by nothing.” Better yet, to use a quote from Cady Heron in Mean Girls, “The limit does not exist!”

Parkland is lucky to have not only a Presidential Award-Nominated Mathematics and Science teacher, but an amazing person who loves her students and her career. Thank you, Kristin, for encouraging a lifelong love of robotics and engineering to boys and girls. Let us all root for Kristin to be recognized in Washington in 2021 as one of the best Mathematics and Science teachers in the country!

Philip Snyder is a partner in the Delray Beach law firm Lyons Snyder Collins.

 

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