PARRISH, Fla. – Neal Communities, southwest Florida’s premier, private homebuilder, recently held its annual “My Favorite Home Art Contest” at Annie Lucy Williams Elementary School in Parrish, FL. The top ten student finalists in each grade level attended along with school officials and guest judges from around the community.
“What a wonderful opportunity to partner with a local business and support art in our school,” said Connie Dixon, principal of Williams Elementary School. “The contest was a way to see the students’ creativity drawing their favorite homes using different mediums and they thoroughly enjoyed it. I am so proud of our students.”
This is Neal’s 18th year holding the My Favorite Home Art Contest, featuring a different community school each year in Manatee or Sarasota County. “For our entire team, this is one of our favorite events each year. We are proud to celebrate student art and education and for 18 years this contest has been an annual highlight for me both personally and professionally,” said Pat Neal, CEO and chairman of the board at Neal Communities. “We are thankful to the team at Williams Elementary for welcoming us into their school and are continually amazed at the creativity exhibited in the student masterpieces.”
Neal Communities donated $1,500 to the school’s art program at the event. “We are extremely thankful to Neal Communities for its generous donation which we will use toward the purchase of printing supplies, clay, tiles, and kiln shelves,” said Nancy Seagle, art teacher at Williams Elementary. “Our students thoroughly enjoyed exploring different art mediums per grade level and it was a nice way to combine that with our existing art curriculum for the beginning of the school year. We thank Neal Communities for the opportunity,” she said.
All students in grades K-5 participated in the contest. The kindergarten students used water color and first grade students worked with oil pastels on colored paper. Second graders used marker, third graders used paper collage and fourth graders used metallic pens on black paper. Fifth grade students did charcoal sketches.
Those submissions were narrowed down to the top 60 entries — ten from each grade level. Six grade level winners were chosen by a celebrity judging panel including Dr. Diana Greene, Manatee County School Superintendent; Gina Messenger, Manatee County School Board member; Sally Tibbets, District Director for Congressman Vern Buchanan; and Gee Dee Kerr, executive director for State Representative Joe Gruters. They were joined by Neal team members from marketing, sales, purchasing, and accounting.
The Neal team selects two overall winners and those students’ artwork will adorn the cover of the Neal Communities and Neal Signature Homes holiday cards for 2017.
Below are the grade level winners listed in order:
· Kindergarten – Elijah Lopes
· 1st Grade – Brendan Ott
· 2nd Grade – Sophia Murphy
· 3rd Grade – Charli Waldrip
· 4th Grade – Baylee Carpenter
· 5th Grade – Jai Li Mongeau
