Lord & Taylor President Vanessa LeFebvre visits the Mizner Park store last month before hosting a luncheon to outline changes and seek feedback on how the store can improve. She heard no criticisms from the people who spoke. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Mary Hladky

As the venerable retailer Lord & Taylor works to revive its flagging fortunes, its newly installed president, Vanessa LeFebvre, visited the Boca Raton Mizner Park store on Feb. 14 to outline coming changes and to solicit feedback on how the store can improve.
But the 20 top Lord & Taylor customers, business people and community leaders invited to attend a luncheon offered no criticisms, and many were ardent fans of the store. They praised the service provided by the store’s employees and lauded store general manager Mindy Horvitz.
“We want you to be here for the long haul,” said one invitee. “You are a vital part of the success of Boca Raton.”
LeFebvre’s visit was part of a “listening tour” of the company’s 45 stores that she launched shortly after returning to the company in May as president. She began her career as a Lord & Taylor assistant buyer and rose through the ranks before leaving for positions with Macy’s, TJX Cos., Daffy’s and online retailer Stitch Fix.
In an interview before the luncheon, LeFebvre did not commit to keeping the Boca Raton store open, saying such promises are impossible to make in today’s difficult retail environment.
Although she declined to provide sales figures, LeFebvre described the store as a “top performer” that benefits from having loyal customers in northern states who spend the winter or vacation in South Florida.
“We feel really good about being here in Boca,” LeFebvre said. “We knew the brand resonated with the Boca customer who is living here as well as the customer who is visiting here, so it is a great match.”
The tour of stores is one of the ways she hopes to learn about how the company can knit more closely to the communities where the stores are located.
“I am here to find that sustainable future for us,” she said.
Lord & Taylor stores dotted South Florida in the early 2000s. But the retailer exited the state in 2004, closing stores in Boca’s Town Center mall, the Mall at Wellington Green and the Palm Beach Mall, among others, in the wake of an ill-fated expansion strategy.
As the chain regrouped, Lord & Taylor opened in Mizner Park to much fanfare and rejoicing in 2013, and is its only brick-and-mortar store in Florida.
More troubles beset the company last year, and it closed 10 stores, including its New York City flagship on Fifth Avenue.
Lord & Taylor is now trying to right the ship once more under the direction of new leaders. The parent company, Hudson’s Bay Co., brought in Helena Foulkes as its CEO last year, then hired LeFebvre.
One big change already underway is Lord & Taylor’s partnership with walmart.com to create an online store that offers about 125 fashion brands, including Tommy Bahama, Vince Camuto, La La Anthony, H Halston and Effy.
It is billed as a “premium” shopping destination, and marries Lord & Taylor’s desire to reach a wider audience and Walmart’s hope to attract more affluent customers by offering higher-end fashion brands.
LeFebvre intends to personalize stores to meet the needs of the community.
As an example, she said she visited the Mizner Park store shortly after becoming president. She wanted to buy shorts, but learned they had sold out. That might not have been a big problem in Connecticut at that time of the year, but shorts needed to be available in Boca.
Discontinuing swimwear also was under consideration, but no longer.
Personalizing stores is one of three tenets the company has set out as it aims for a profitable future.
Lord & Taylor also wants to be a “smarter store” that will soon alert customers to which items are “customer favorites” in an effort to help them quickly select the best items for themselves.
It’s also emphasizing innovation. That will include new ways of providing personal shopping and virtual personal shopping online and improving the chain’s website to make it easier for customers to find what they want online.
The company’s base customers are ages 35 to 75, and LeFebvre wants to add younger people to the mix. But she noted that the oldest millennials are now 38 and have families.
“We cater to a female customer who is shopping for her family,” she said.

Owners and associates from Seaside Builders and Premier Estate Properties celebrate their teamwork on Cove 4 at 344 Venetian Drive, one of several properties Seaside is developing in the neighborhood. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Christine Davis

Cove 4, developed by Seaside Builders, held a Delray Beach ground-breaking ceremony in February at its 344 Venetian Drive location. The building will be a residential fourplex on the Intracoastal Waterway, with prices starting at $3.5 million.
Other properties currently being developed by Seaside in the neighborhood include a four-bedroom home priced at $4.395 million at 202 Venetian Drive; a four-bedroom home priced at $4.25 million at 1201 Seaspray Drive; three units at 917 Bucida Drive starting at $2.895 million; four units at 104 Andrews Avenue starting at $2.495 million; and units at 101 and 105 SE Seventh Avenue, each priced at $1.595 million. For information, call Premier Estate Properties broker associates Pascal Liguori at 278-0100 and Antonio Liguori at 414-4849.

The Edwards Companies, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, took out a $94 million loan from Fifth Third Bank for Atlantic Crossing, a four-story mixed-use complex under construction on a 9-acre site at Atlantic Avenue and Federal Highway in Delray Beach. Financing includes $16 million that the bank lent in 2016, records show. The development will include 83,000 square feet of office space, 73,000 square feet of space for retail stores and restaurants, 261 rental apartments and 82 condominium units.
Edwards Cos. filed a lawsuit in 2015 alleging the city deliberately stalled the project, which was first proposed in 2011. The developer and the city settled the lawsuit in 2017. Records show Edwards paid $15.8 million for the land in 2016.

Two adjoining office buildings at 5201 Congress Ave. and 901 W. Yamato Road in Boca Raton sold for $68.35 million. The seller was Mainstreet CV North 40 LLC, a joint venture between Fort Lauderdale-based Mainstreet Capital Partners and Minnesota-based CarVal Investors, and the buyer was PG Mainstreet North Forty LLC, managed by Mainstreet Capital Partners and an unidentified partner. BankUnited provided a $47.58 million mortgage to the buyer. Cross Country Healthcare has its headquarters at 5201 Congress Ave. The 901 W. Yamato Road building has the U.S. headquarters of Biotest Pharmaceuticals Corp.

The New York-based real estate investment group InvestCorp sold University View, a 55-unit development at 2190 NW Fourth Court in Boca Raton, for $20.8 million in January. The buyer is University View Apartments Funding Company LLC, a Delaware company, which secured a $14.3 million loan from JP Morgan to make the transaction. InvestCorp purchased the development for $20.25 million in 2016 as part of a $105 million portfolio sale that included two other Palm Beach County multifamily properties. InvestCorp’s parent company is based in Bahrain.

Cleveland Clinic Florida purchased 35.4 acres of vacant land west of Lake Worth in January. It paid $4.63 million to the Diocese of Palm Beach for 19.1 acres at 8765 Lake Worth Road, and another $4.63 million to Herbert F. Kahlert for 16.3 acres at the southeast corner of Lyons Road and Cypress Springs Road. Cleveland Clinic spokeswoman Heather Phillips said there are currently no plans for the land.

The trust of Ridgway Harding White bought a waterfront home at 1495 Lands End Road in Manalapan in January for $5.17 million. The sellers, Gregory and Monica Oberting, bought the house in 2015 for $4.115 million, property records show. White is the president and CEO of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, which supports nonprofits throughout Flint, Michigan. His great-grandfather Charles Stewart Mott was the original U.S. partner of General Motors Corp. and later bought the company that became U.S. Sugar, which is now partly owned by the Mott Foundation.

Nick Malinosky and his team, The Randy & Nick Team at Douglas Elliman, were selected to lead sales for the Gulf Stream Views townhomes on Old Ocean Boulevard that are in the pre-construction phase in the County Pocket. Gulf Stream Views, offered by NR Living Platinum, will consist of 14 four-bedroom units priced from $1.495 million to $3.3 million. The build team includes architect Richard Jones, DMR Construction and Carrie Leigh Design. The developer paid $5.4 million for the 2-acre site and scored a $16.5 million loan from Trez Forman for the land and development.

Lang Realty recognized its top agents and teams of 2018 at a special awards breakfast at Aberdeen Golf and Country Club in February. In the south county coastal area, a Diamond Award winner was Warren Heeg. Diamond Team Awards winners included Olive Belcher and Brittany Belcher and the Pearl Antonacci Group. A Ruby Award recipient was Julie Giachetti, and a Ruby Team Award was presented to Kathy Pendleton and Phil Metzler. Emerald Award winners included Laura Urness and Robin Winistorfer, and Emerald Team Award winners included Michael Gallacher and Anne Bernet.

Palm Beach State College earned national Top 10 rankings from two military publishers for the second consecutive year. Viqtory and Military Times have placed the college fourth and seventh respectively on their lists of the best higher education institutions for veterans, which made the college the highest-ranking Florida school in its category.
Palm Beach State College launched its Innovation Lab at a ceremony in February. The 1,264-square-foot center is in the Technology Center on the Lake Worth campus.
“The lab is designed to connect PBSC students with industry, providing students with hands-on experiences that prepare them for placement upon graduation,” said Kimberly Allen, the college’s associate dean for business and computer science.  The Innovation Lab was set in motion by Alireza Fazelpour, a Palm Beach State College computer science professor, and developed through the collaboration of faculty, staff and business partners.

Boca Raton-based Gladiator Lacrosse LLC, led by 18-year-old entrepreneur Rachel Zietz, has acquired All Ball Pro, a company headquartered in St. Louis that manufactures and distributes professional-grade balls and rebounders for sports. Zietz, a freshman at Princeton University, founded Gladiator Lacrosse in 2012, when she was 13. At 15, she appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, and in 2016, she made a deal with Dick’s Sporting Goods to carry her line of products.

Discover the Palm Beaches, the tourism marketing organization for Palm Beach County, hosted its third Customer Advisory Board meeting at the Boca Raton Resort and Club in February. Members of the advisory board are professionals representing groups that include SunTrust, National Dental Association, Americans for the Arts and American Society for Microbiology. They serve as volunteers to give feedback on how the marketing organization can better promote the area for conventions and meetings.

Jeb Conrad, president and CEO of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, welcomed 120 members and supporters to the Chamber’s annual Membership Luncheon & Installation of Officers in January at the Delray Beach Golf Club.
Bill Branning was sworn in as chairman. Named to the Executive Board were Rob Posillico of the Scirocco Group; Noreen Payne of All About Florida Homes/Keller Williams; Cathy Balestriere of Crane’s Beach House & Luxury Villas; Robert Hickok of Hickok Law Firm, P.A.; Alan Goodman of  Nason, Yeager, Gerson, White & Lioce, P.A.; Ron Kaniuk of Kaniuk Law Office, P.A.; and Jim Chard of Human Powered Delray.
The Board of Directors includes: David Beale of Law Offices of David A. Beale; Sarah Crane of the HOW Foundation; Mark Denkler of Vince Canning Shoes, Inc.; Evelyn Dobson of Delray Beach Community Land Trust; Charlene Farrington of Spady Cultural Heritage Museum; Jesse Flowers of CenterState Bank; Roger Kirk of Bethesda Hospital; Amanda Perna of The House of Perna; David Schmidt of Law Offices of Simon and Schmidt; Barbara Stark of Milagro Center; Jeff Dash of Dash Travel; Mark Lauzier, Delray Beach city manager; Johnny Mackey of Shamrock Restoration; Steve Mackey of Mack Industrial, Inc.; Manish Mehta of Doughnut Works/PixelGlue; Kristen Noffsinger of Kristen Rose Agency; Dan Paulus of GFA International, Inc.; Scott Porten of Porten Companies; and Dr. Marcie Young of Young Dentistry, P.A.
Roy Simon was recognized for 60 years of Chamber membership.
The Chamber named Payne as director of the year and John Campanola from New York Life as ambassador of the year. Recognized previously were the Delray Beach Elks Club as business of the year; Balestriere as businessperson of the year; and Schmidt as the Crystal Palm Award winner for community service.

The Boca Chamber honored Ethel Isaacs Williams as its Diamond Award recipient during its 13th annual Diamond Awards luncheon last month at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. The event recognizes a professional woman in South Palm Beach County who contributes to the vibrancy of the community. Williams, a senior vice president at Kaufman Lynn Construction, serves as immediate past chair of the Chamber’s board of directors, and she is part of several civic and professional associations, including the national and Palm Beach County bar associations.
The 2019 Pearl Award recipient was Casey Hill, who designed the Piston Trainer for trumpet players. The award is given to a young woman who is a graduate of the Chamber’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy. Hill, a junior at Boca Raton Community High School, launched her company in August.
The Chamber’s Community Cookout will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 16 at the YMCA of South Palm Beach County, 6631 Palmetto Circle South. There will be hot dogs, hamburgers, veggies, chips and more, as well as games for all ages, with bounce houses, slides and a DJ. Admission is free, and meal tickets can be purchased for $5. To register, visit bocaratonchamber.com/events.

MDG Advertising, a company that sponsors Boca Raton Eco Trail Trekker, put out a call for runners to take part in the Sports, Health and Wellness Expo at Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus on March 30-31. Runners will raise money for charities. For each team entry, organizers will donate 50 percent of money received to Achievement Centers for Children & Families in Delray Beach. For information, visit ecotrailtrekker.com/boca-raton-team-entry-form/

Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com. 

By Steve Plunkett

Construction has begun to replace Interstate 95’s bridge over the Hillsboro Canal, South Palm Beach County’s key high-speed conduit to Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale and points south.
Work on the northbound I-95 bridge started Feb. 4, with demolition and dredging expected to last three to four months and construction another eight months. A second phase, for the median in both directions, will follow and also take a year. The third phase, for southbound I-95, will consume most of 2021.
The new bridge will not only be wider, to accommodate new express toll lanes in both directions, but also higher, giving watercraft beneath it 12 feet of clearance at mean high water instead of the current 8 feet.
The activity is part of a $102 million project to replace the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes from south of Southwest 10th Street in Deerfield Beach to south of Glades Road with two toll lanes in each direction. The overall project includes widening the interstate’s bridges over Camino Real and Palmetto Park Road.
In Delray Beach, the north sidewalk on Atlantic Avenue on both sides of the interstate was closed in mid-January for work to improve that interchange. Pedestrians are being routed to the south side of Atlantic until spring 2020; the $5.2 million project will add dedicated turn lanes to northbound I-95 and new turn lanes for westbound Atlantic traffic turning north or south onto Congress Avenue.
Andi Pacini, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Transportation, gave the Federation of Boca Raton Homeowner Associations an update on the express lanes Feb. 5.
“As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a lot of construction going on the main line, I-95, now,” Pacini said. “The idea is to build a very fast, multimodal commute from Palm Beach County all the way down to Dade. It’s not meant for getting on and getting off. It’s more like a straight shot, fast, take you all the way down approach.”
Motorists on the express lanes in Miami-Dade County pay tolls of 50 cents to $10.50, depending on distance, time of day and congestion. The goal is to keep traffic in the express lanes moving at an average speed of 45 to 50 mph, the FDOT says.
Craig Fox, president of the federation and owner of an electric vehicle, also noted that EVs travel free in express lanes.
The state DOT foresees more and more traffic on I-95 in coming years, growing from 290,000 vehicles a day now to 360,000 daily in 2030, Pacini said.
The express lanes connecting Fort Lauderdale to Miami have boosted average speeds 300 percent in the toll lanes and 200 percent in the local lanes, she said.
The express lane project will also improve drainage on I-95, lessening the chance of hydroplaning during rain, and use “class 5 anti-graffiti paint” that makes graffiti easy to wash off, Pacini said.
A second phase, estimated to cost $130 million, will take the toll lanes from south of Glades north to south of Linton Avenue. Work is planned to begin next year and end in 2024.

Savor the Avenue has been celebrating Delray Beach restaurants for more than a decade. Photo provided by Delray Beach DDA

By Jan Norris

For a decade, Delray Beach has been blocking off Atlantic Avenue in the tastiest of detours. Savor the Avenue, the five-block-long dinner party staged in the center of the street, returns for an 11th year on March 25, with downtown restaurants showcasing their food, wine and elaborate table displays.
Sponsored by the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority and Boca magazine, the event has garnered national attention and spawned several copycats. It’s all flattery for the city, said Laura Simon, executive director of the DDA.
“We are thrilled once again to bring the downtown to life and our community together with this experiential event in a very social and very Delray Beach way. The restaurants are excited and have created themes for their table décor from fun to elegant as they compete for Best in Show,” she said.
Fourteen restaurants were scheduled to participate, some that have been with the event since the start. Among those are Cabana El Rey, The Office, Caffe Luna Rosa, City Oyster & Sushi Bar, and Vic & Angelo’s.
Others set to participate: 50 Ocean, Che, Death or Glory, Lemongrass, Rack’s Fish House and Gary Rack’s Farmhouse Kitchen, L’Acqua, Rocco’s Tacos and Salt 7.
Nearly all reservations, made directly with each restaurant, were sold out by mid-February, according to the DDA website.
Atlantic Avenue will be closed, and long tables for the restaurants will line the middle of the street from Swinton Avenue to Fifth Avenue, with the railroad tracks the main gap. Each restaurant is responsible for its own table decor, food and paired wines, and service staff.
A contest for best table decor brings out elaborate, creative themes. Guests each leave with a gift bag. All restaurants prepare a four-course menu, though some chefs are known to slide in some extras during the evening.
Chef Ernie DeBlasi of Caffe Luna Rosa says it’s a tricky dinner to cater — especially preparing food in a tent as he does. Caffe Luna Rosa, on State Road A1A, is too far away for hot food to travel for 110 diners.
“A lot goes into it — more than you would think,” he said. “It’s enough of a feat if you’re cooking four courses for 110 people at once in your own restaurant during service. Doing it in a tent with unfamiliar equipment under unpredictable conditions, it’s definitely more difficult. Any number of things can go wrong, and you just have to be ready.”
The restaurants along Atlantic have it easier. “If you’re fortunate enough to have a restaurant that’s on the street with your table nearby, it’s easier,” though still problematic if you’re open for service to other diners, DeBlasi said.
From writing the menu, to planning equipment and prep lists, and pulling the staff to work the street dinner (“I get the guy with the pickup truck who can carry our coolers,” he said), details must be checked off far in advance.
“You have to get there early and check all your equipment. You don’t want to show up and find out your pilot light isn’t working,” he said. “Been there, done that.”
The tent kitchen must be up to code, so city and fire code compliance officers come to inspect for fire extinguishers and three compartment hand- and dish-washing sinks.
The event attracts hundreds more than it did 11 years ago. “We had 30 people the first year, and this year we’re up to 110,” DeBlasi said. “We sell out early. I’d say 50 percent of the people have been here every year, and the other 50 percent just happen in.”
DeBlasi does all this while still running dinner service at the restaurant; a trusted staff helps. “We’re ready to go home at the end,” he said. “It’s a long day.”
The dinner starts with walk-around cocktails provided by the restaurants at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner. A list of the menus and information about the event are at DowntownDelrayBeach.com/SavortheAvenue.

In Boca Raton, they’re preparing for Boca Bacchanal, hailing all things wine and food. It’s April 4-6, with events at the Boca Raton Resort and Club.
Team members announced in February the select pairings for the vintner dinners, the exclusive hallmarks of the event. They’re held in private homes in Boca.
The dinners are designed and executed by noted chefs from around the country. Their four-course menus are paired with a winery whose owner or representative is at the dinner.
This year, Barbara and Bobby Campbell have Craggy Range Vineyards of New Zealand, and chefs Lior Lev Sercarz of La Boîte, New York, and Justin Smillie of Upland in New York and Miami.
Joyce and Thom DeVita and Joni and Al Goldberg will host representatives of ZD Wines of Napa, with chef Matt Gennuso of Chez Pascal in Providence, Rhode Island.
Maria and Todd Roberti host vintners from Darioush, Napa, along with chefs Brian and Shanna O’Hea of Academe at the Kennebunk Inn in Maine.
Holly and David Meehan host representatives of Silver Oak/Twomey Cellars of Napa, with chef Russ Aaron Simon of GG’s Waterfront in Hollywood, Florida.
Diane and Robert Bok host vintners from Maison Louis Jadot’s Resonance of France and Oregon. Chef Adam Jakins of Hall’s Chophouse in Charleston, South Carolina, will cook.
These intimate dinners are the big-ticket event at the festival, at $350 per person with limited seating in each home. Dinners are at 7 p.m. April 5.
Other events include the new Bubbles & Burgers, April 4 at the Boca Beach Club at the resort. Guests can mingle with others and meet the chefs of the bacchanal. Specialty burgers and Champagne are on the menu. Tickets are $75 per person.
The finale of the weekend is the Grand Tasting, April 6 at the resort. Tickets are $125 per person, with an international representation of wines and winemakers on hand to talk about them. Dozens of chefs from area restaurants will prepare small bites off their menus in a walk-around setting, and more than 100 lots will be offered for bid in a silent auction. For more information and for tickets to all events, visit bocabacchanal.com.

South Florida is getting on the “environment-friendly” train, with cities voting to ban plastic-foam dinnerware and take-out containers, plastic bags and straws. Delray Beach voted in the plastic straw ban in February.
Now Boca Raton wants to recognize restaurants and other businesses it deems eco-friendly by giving out star ratings for their efforts. The symbol for the ratings is a starfish.
Up to three stars can be awarded to each business, given in the form of a certificate to be posted. The rating will depend on the level of sustainability and eco-friendly practices, such as plant-based menu items.
The program is aimed at the reduction of single-use plastics often found on beaches, in waterways and public parks where fish, turtles and birds mistake it for food. With the largest coastline of all cities in the county, Boca Raton has much at stake.
It’s an initiative brought to the city by Lindsey Nieratka, the new sustainability manager. She hopes the recognition for some restaurants will lead others to participate in the program.
It’s part of a larger Coastal Connection initiative, a more ambitious program teaching and encouraging environment-friendly practices by businesses as well as restaurants.
Restaurants can earn one starfish if they offer plastic straws only by request, use biodegradable takeout containers and offer sustainable menu items such as vegetarian dishes.
Two starfish can be achieved if the restaurant adheres to the one-starfish rules and works to conserve water and energy and recycle within the restaurant.
The top rating, three starfish, goes to the restaurants that practice all the above, plus use techniques that reduce light pollution and cut food waste in the kitchen.
These top restaurants also will use sustainable seafood (if they serve seafood), and those fish and shellfish on the Seafood Watch list compiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The Seafood Watch program has been around for decades and uses research on sustainability and endangerment of fishes from the aquarium.

In brief: A third Beehive Kitchen, a fast-casual bowl restaurant, officially opens this month in Boca Raton at 1914 NE Fifth Ave. The Florida-based restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, serving gluten-free, antibiotic-free, hormone-free menu choices, with an emphasis on vegetables. It’s a cafeteria-style counter service eatery. Call 341-0496 for information.
In a move that has Delray’s food community talking, Bruce Feingold stepped away from the stoves at DaDa after 18 years as chef. He’s moving on to pursue other ventures and spend time with family.
The Delray Beach Wine & Seafood Festival returns to downtown Delray Beach and Old School Square on March 9 and 10. Event-goers can sign up for seminars from top chefs or vintners to learn how to pair wine and seafood. The event will feature live music as well as arts and crafts for sale. Admission is free. For the event schedule or to purchase tickets to food and wine pairings, visit WineandSeafoodFest.com.

Jan Norris is a food writer who can be reached at nativefla@gmail.com. Thom Smith is on leave.

The Plate: Turkey sandwich
The Place: Mission BBQ, 1100 Congress Ave., No. 130, Boynton Beach; 335-1514 or mission-bbq.com.
The Price: $6.99
The Skinny: I’m on a quest for the best smoked turkey. Don’t ask why, but I’ve never been a rib man, and brisket does not interest me. To me, there’s nothing more satisfying than finding delicately smoked, tender, juicy turkey sliced thick and served on a fresh roll. Mission BBQ does it beautifully.
I came to like Mission’s food when I visited the small chain’s Fort Myers store — the Boynton restaurant is the company’s only location in Palm Beach County.
Sides are nice, if not noteworthy — fries are always crisp and clean tasting, and the mac and cheese offers oodles of gooey goodness. The collards I tried last visit were earthy and hearty on a rainy night.
There’s fine cuisine and there’s good eating.
I’ll take good eating any time.
— Scott Simmons

Larry Okun, Eric Adams and Ron Simon (l-r), volunteers from Temple Sinai, and Chris Bentley, whose company bought the four-stall shower truck, take a selfie in front of it at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

On a brisk Friday morning earlier this year, Judy Fenney and Kathleen Megan awaited the start of the mobile shower program in Delray Beach.

The two volunteers, wearing pink pullover sweaters and blue jeans, checked in 14 homeless people who had signed up for showers.

The shower truck is parked in a lot behind St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church.

The women handed each person a toiletry kit, a towel, new socks and underwear. Men each received a new T-shirt and women got new bras.

That Friday was the first day of the six-month pilot program, which gained city commissioners’ blessing in December.

The showers are offered on Fridays during lunchtime and limited to people who eat at the Caring Kitchen meal sites, at St. Matthew’s, Cason United Methodist Church and, effective Feb. 28, First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach on the barrier island.

People also can request showers through Ariana Ciancio, the special populations advocate in the Police Department.

The City Commission wants to make sure the program serves only the homeless population of Delray Beach.

“We started two years ago on the transition committee for the Caring Kitchen,” Megan said of the CROS Ministries program. “It’s been an amazing journey.”

Ezra Krieg, who chairs the city’s Homeless Task Force, called Fenney and Megan “superstars” for their efforts to bring the mobile shower truck to Delray Beach. He praised the Rev. Marcia Beam, pastor of St. Matthew’s, for allowing the shower truck to sit on church land behind the sanctuary at 404 SW Third St.

And he commended Ciancio for her soft touch with homeless people.

“Our mission is to try positive solutions,” Krieg said. “We can’t arrest our way out of the homeless problem.”

In 2017, the City Commission wanted the Caring Kitchen to move from a city-owned location on Northwest Eighth Avenue where it had prepared and served meals, offered clothing and shoes, and provided social services. The neighbors had complained about litter and disturbances on their properties.

CROS Ministries decided to have the Caring Kitchen focus on providing free meals. Ruth Mageria, executive director of CROS, asked Fenney and Megan, longtime Caring Kitchen volunteers, to offer the social services the organization could no longer provide.
The two women, members of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, became co-chairwomen of the Delray Beach Interfaith Committee for Social Services. They’ve started the process of the committee’s filing to become an official charity.

That would allow the committee to apply for grants and allow it to accept direct donations, instead of the donors’ making out checks to St. Paul’s and writing shower program on the memo lines.

The committee meets monthly at St. Paul’s to talk about its needs, such as backpacks to give to shower-takers with tattered packs, Fenney said at the February meeting. The program also needs bras.

The committee started with a handful of churches, she said. Now it has members from 12 churches, a Jewish temple, local nonprofits and the city.

“Because it involves churches, we have a different quality of volunteers,” Fenney said. “It is very much the ministry of the churches to feed the hungry and provide services.”

Patti Alexander, who sits on the CROS board and is a member of Cason United Methodist, said the church trustees offered Cason as a serving site when they heard the Caring Kitchen had to move.

“Then, the trustees agreed to allow the food to be prepared at Cason,” she said. “It snowballed from there.”

The initial six-month contract expired Feb. 1 and was renewed for another year, with options, Alexander said.

That allows CROS Ministries time to search for a countywide site for its food distribution offerings, Mageria said.

Cason also serves lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

First Presbyterian Church was starting an eight-week trial with a Thursday meal, said Wally Hartung, the church’s Caring Kitchen representative.

As part of the effort to help homeless people, college interns from Family Promise of South Palm Beach County staff two sessions weekly at the Delray Beach Public Library. They help people apply for birth certificates and get ID cards.

“Each appointment takes at least 90 minutes and can take up to two and a half hours,” said Jennifer Raymond, executive director of the Family Promise branch. The social work students also do mental health assessments and referrals.

More than 270 people have been served, Raymond said. “Many are repeat clients because homeless people often lose their IDs or are robbed of their belongings,” she said.

“You can’t do anything these days without an ID,” said Jackie Ermola, president of the St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church Care Ministry. “Even for a county bus pass, you need a photo ID.”

Kathleen  Megan of St. Paul’s Episcopal works check-in at the showers, which are open each Friday for homeless people who sign up. They leave with donated items such as clean clothes.

The St. Vincent group uses donations from church members to purchase the toiletry kits, socks and underwear in bulk for distribution on shower day. It also pays to launder the towels.

The shower truck has become the most visible sign of the interfaith committee’s social services role.

Chris Bentley, founder of Live Fresh Inc., said he got the idea for a mobile shower program when he was enrolled in a master’s program at Columbia University in New York City.

“The homeless there often came into the coffee shops,” Bentley said. “But no one wanted to sit next to them because they smelled.”
Bentley says that when he felt low, he could “take a shower and get a haircut” and feel better. But homeless people could not do that easily, he said.

He received a $100,000 grant from Impact 100 of the Palm Beaches to purchase the first mobile shower, which has six stalls and is in Fort Lauderdale. Later, his company bought a four-stall unit that is parked at St. Matthew’s.

“I feel great,” one man said after his shower in early January.

Wearing a feather in his cap, he came out of the unit holding his socks and shoes. He said he didn’t want to take up more than his allotted time. He also said, “They need a garbage can in the units.”

The truck has two propane tanks to heat the water, lessening the financial demand on St. Matthew’s, Bentley said.

Even so, the Rev. Beam said her governing board was willing to let the unit hook up to the church’s water. “That’s what churches should do,” Beam said.

Chris Bentley (center) and volunteer Judy Fenney check in people to use the showers parked at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach.

Temple Sinai congregants also volunteer on shower day. Eric Adams, an interfaith committee member, said the congregants look for opportunities to help others.

On the first day, Adams, Ron Simon and Larry Okun took turns timing the showers. Each person is allowed 15 minutes and receives a warning after 13 minutes. Showers are sanitized after each person is finished.

Ciancio, the special populations advocate, told city commissioners on Feb. 12 that no incidents required police response at the shower site.

Her dream is to have everything come together for a homeless person in a short period of time, from visiting the city’s Career Cottage to finding a suitable job interview.

She hopes that interview would take place on a Friday afternoon. That would allow the homeless person to get a shower, eat lunch at St. Matthew’s and select business clothes from her stash to wear to the interview. “I feel like a million bucks when I’m clean, food is in my belly and I have new clothes to wear,” Ciancio said.

She mentioned one success story about a homeless man who now works on Atlantic Avenue. Soon, she said, he will have saved enough money to get into housing.

A client heads in to take a shower, which is scheduled for up to 15 minutes.

Through mid-February, 63 people had taken advantage of the mobile shower program, Fenney said. That translates to 12 to 14 people each Friday.

She said many are repeat clients who find the showers refreshing and empowering.

Rhyan and T.J. Dildine at the Delray Shores Pharmacy and Soda Fountain. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Joyce Reingold

The Delray Shores Pharmacy and Soda Fountain on Northeast Fifth Avenue is a bright, cheerful family affair owned and operated by second-generation pharmacist T.J. Dildine.

Inside the Art Deco-style building, Dildine greets pharmacy patrons by name while his wife, Rhyan, helms the old-timey soda fountain. Together their goal is to serve customers by offering the best of the old and the new.

That vision has come into focus at the lunch counter, where diners can choose a traditional tuna salad sandwich, or a cannabidiol-infused ice cream treat, soda or brownie from the “Adulting” menu — just for the 21-and-older set.

The store carries a curated selection of traditional drugstore items, while on the pharmacy counter, CBD gummies, salves and tinctures from brands like Ananda Professional and Funky Farms await interested customers. “Ask us about CBD!” a sign says.

The Delray Beach pharmacy is one of a growing number of retail and online businesses selling the hemp derivative to consumers who have heard CBD may provide relief for ailments ranging from anxiety to pain.

Now that the 2018 Farm Bill has recognized hemp as an agricultural commodity, and delisted it as a controlled substance, some experts predict CBD is on its way to becoming a $22 billion industry. However, health departments in some municipalities, like New York City, have ordered restaurants to stop selling CBD-infused foods.

“This is just getting started,” affirms CBD enthusiast Josh Hoffman, who with business partner Sal Mirtalebi owns and operates Health Synergy, a Boca Raton-based company that offers a full line of CBD products from its storefront on North Federal Highway. “Cannabis is the new everything.

“These oils will be in every single product that you use, from your beverages to your makeup, to your shampoo, to your soap to your pet products, to your vitamins, to every single thing under the sun.”

It takes just a few drops of CBD to top an adult float. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

CBD is a cannabinoid found in hemp and marijuana, both of which come from the Cannabis sativa family. Hemp has a high concentration of CBD and, unlike its cousin marijuana, has low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive agent that causes euphoria.

Hemp’s THC concentration is .3 percent or less. “That’s what keeps these products legal” says Hoffman. “Marijuana, it could be up to 30 percent.”

Hoffman and Mirtalebi also operate ALLleaf, a medical cannabis education and certification center.

At Delray Shores, T.J. Dildine says customers curious about CBD often are dealing with “chronic pain, anything inflammatory in nature, arthritis, autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia, insomnia, anxiety. Those are certainly the most common conditions where we see patients looking for an alternative option.”

In research, CBD has shown promise in treating seizures, leading to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of Epidiolex (cannabidiol), a medication for patients with two rare forms of epilepsy.

Other small-scale studies have suggested CBD may have anti-anxiety properties and the ability to reduce inflammation. More research is ongoing for the CBD-curious, and much more research is needed. And it’s always a good idea to check with your pharmacist or physician.

Lynn, a Boynton Beach resident in her 30s, did just that. With her doctor’s OK, she added CBD to the mix of medications she takes for inflammation, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and pain.

“The first night I took it, I was able to get a good night’s sleep. When I woke up, I wasn’t groggy and had relief,” she says. (We’re using Lynn’s first name only, for privacy reasons.)

Now she takes CBD nightly and says she has decreased her prescription drug use. “It’s helped with pain and inflammation, and it’s helped me with sleep and anxiety.”

CBD comes in different strengths, formulations and forms, but if you plan to try it, before deciding between oil or a capsule, Hoffman says there’s a more important place to start.

“The first question you should always ask: Does this product have a third-party lab analysis? If it doesn’t, conversation’s over because you don’t know what’s in it.”

Health Synergy’s products are third-party tested twice, he says. The entire Delray Shores CBD lineup is third-party tested as well.
Dildine begins conversations with new customers by explaining the formulations.

“I think the oils, the tinctures, have a lot more flexibility with dosing,” he says. “We tend to recommend a starting dose of 10 to 15 milligrams a day in the evening, just to kind of see how their body responds. And depending on what they’re using it for, if they want to increase the dose after a period of time, or incorporate a daytime dose as well, we certainly can do that. It’s very individualized.”

Hoffman says a month’s supply averages $80, but it varies by customer. “And that’s not to say this is like a miracle silver bullet, you know, a one size fits all. It’s an adjunct. You’ve got to be eating healthy, you’ve got to have enough sleep. It’s never one thing. But in conjunction with other things, it can be pretty powerful.”

The Farm Bill that legalized hemp recognized the FDA as the regulatory body for products containing CBD, and the next few years are likely to be lively as boundaries are defined and tested. Today, many working in the CBD space cite “gray areas.”

But there is at least one non-gray area: The FDA prohibits manufacturers from making health claims about CBD products. “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease” is common terminology on the websites of CBD purveyors. 

“The FDA has sent warning letters in the past to companies illegally selling CBD products that claimed to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure serious diseases, such as cancer,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

As Funky Farms explains on its website: “We are not allowed to make medical claims regarding CBD, but encourage you to do your own research and reading online and offline to find the answer. What we can tell you is that CBD is a very interesting discovery, indeed.”

Joyce Reingold writes about health and healthy living. Send column ideas to joyce.reingold@yahoo.com.

Louis B. and Anne W. Green made the drive's sixth gift of at least $10 million. Their names will grace the lobby. Photo provided

Boca Raton Regional Hospital has received a $10 million gift from Louis B. and Anne W. Green for Keeping the Promise …the Campaign for Boca Raton Regional Hospital. The Greens’ gift is one of six eight-figure gifts received by the campaign, which has raised at least $118 million toward its $250 million goal. The redesigned hospital lobby will be named the Louis B. and Anne W. Green Lobby in recognition of the gift.

“I am honored to have served on Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Corporate and Foundation Boards of Trustees for many years and privileged to be part of a leadership team that has helped guide us to become one of the area’s premier medical centers,” said Louis Green. “We are steadfastly committed to the promise made more than 50 years ago by Gloria Drummond, and know, though we have come so far, there is so much yet to accomplish.”  

The campaign officially launched in January. A main component of the project includes a patient tower with surgical suites, lobby, and three floors set aside for future growth.

Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, College of Business and College of Education were listed in the January 2019 U.S. News & World Report national rankings for Best Online Graduate Programs.  

The College of Nursing climbed from the No. 39 spot in 2018 to the No. 23 spot nationwide among the 2019 Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs.

The College of Business is ranked No. 51 among the Best Online MBA Programs, and No. 43 among the Best Online Business Programs, non-MBA. The College of Education is ranked No. 77 among Best Online Education Programs.
The university’s online graduate nursing programs, online MBA programs and online business programs, non-MBA, are all listed on the Best Online Programs for Veterans 2019.

The Best Online Programs methodologies are based on factors that include engagement, faculty credentials and training, expert opinion, student excellence, and services and technologies provided at online degree-granting programs at regionally accredited institutions.

Dr. David G. Forcione was appointed as Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s medical director of advanced therapeutic endoscopy of The Center for Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy and BocaCare Physician Network. Forcione specializes in interventional endoscopy, including disorders of the pancreas and bile ducts, early gastrointestinal malignancies and minimally invasive endoscopic therapies.

Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Toppel Family Place now offers nitrous oxide as a pain management tool to women during labor. It is self-administered and can be used during all stages of labor.

“We are continuously focused on making sure our new mothers are comfortable and have access to the latest innovations during labor,” said Karen Edlington, RN, BSc, director of Toppel Family Place. Using nitrous oxide does not interfere with the mother’s labor progress and can be used at any time during labor right up to the point of birth.

Delray Medical Center achieved the Healthgrades 2019 America’s 50 Best Hospitals Award for the 17th straight year. The distinction places the hospital in the top 1 percent of more than 4,500 hospitals assessed nationwide for its consistently superior clinical performance.

Dr. Pedro J. Greer Jr. delivered the keynote speech during the recent 12th annual Future of Medicine Summit in West Palm Beach. The event was presented by the Palm Beach County Medical Society.

Greer, from Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, has received numerous awards, including a 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” Fellow.

At FIU he is professor of medicine, founding chairman of the Department of Humanities, Health and Society, and associate dean for community engagement.

The Palm Beach County Medical Society Excellence in Medicine Award was given to Dr. James Goldenberg, medical director for a regional, clinically integrated network representing more than 1,700 physicians.

The winners of the annual James J. Brynes, MD Poster Symposium and Memorial Fund for Medical Education and Physician Wellness, were:

In the Vignette Category, Shayne Polley, Sameer Gupta and Christina Mesoraco, with Evan Stuchin receiving honorable mention. In the Research Category, winners were Danielle Steinberg, Nicole Lin and Matthew Stankard, with Dr. Peter Edemekong receiving an honorable mention.

FAU Internal Medicine Residency 2019 won the inaugural medical challenge. The team included Drs. Kevin Almerico, Wayne Fluss and Elizabeth Hidlebaugh.

The Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Cancer Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital has created image enhancement programs for patients undergoing cancer treatment. The Be U Tiful for women and Him II for men programs teach techniques on coping with skin changes, hair loss, hand and nail care, scar camouflage and other cancer treatment-related conditions. The programs are open to anyone in active treatment up to one year post-treatment.

VITAS Healthcare, a provider of end-of-life care, is offering an orientation class for new volunteers in Palm Beach County. The next trainings will be held March 28, May 4 and June 6.

The local VITAS office is at 1901 South Congress Ave., Suite 420, Boynton Beach. To RSVP for orientation, call Gayle Stevens at 733-6332 or email Gayle.Stevens@Vitas.com, or Patricia Powell at 731-6203 or Pat.Powell@vitas.com.

For information about becoming a VITAS volunteer, visit vitas.com/volunteer.

Send health news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.

Marla Schaefer, the former co-CEO and co-chairwoman of the board of Claire’s Stores, Inc., will speak at the second annual Lewis Katz Industry Icon Series on March 14 in Zinman Hall at the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County campus, 9901 Donna Klein Blvd. in Boca Raton.

Schaefer sold Claire’s, the largest accessory retailer in the world, to private equity in 2007. She has established herself as a philanthropist whose causes include Teachers College at Columbia University, and she is a national and international board member of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. 

Networking will begin at 6 p.m. over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (dietary laws observed), and the program will start at 6:30. Tickets are $36. To RSVP, visit jewishboca.org/icon. For more information, contact Sonni Simon at 852-3128 or email sonnis@bocafed.org.

Introducing SmartLab
St. Joseph’s Episcopal School in Boynton Beach cut the ribbon for its STREAM SmartLab on Jan. 23. STREAM, like STEM and STEAM, focuses on the subjects science, mathematics, engineering, art and technology, but it includes an “r” for religion, a vital part of education at St. Joe’s.

SmartLab programs teach practical skills as well as problem-solving and critical thinking, facilitator Carol Cunningham said. The ribbon cutting included a demonstration for parents showing how kids are using advanced technology for more than texting and watching YouTube.

St. Joseph’s invites groups and organizations to tour SmartLab and to learn more about its STREAM philosophy. Parents who want to learn more about St. Joseph’s school can set up a tour of the campus.

Have you been looking for a space for meetings and gatherings? The STREAM SmartLab can accommodate small groups. Call Mary Aperavich at 732-2045 or email MAperavich@sjsonline.org.

Icons in Transformation
The Icons in Transformation Preview Party on Jan. 27 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church drew a crowd eager to meet artist Ludmila Pawlowska and see her 150 works on display. The abstract expressionist was welcomed by special guest speaker Bishop Chip Stokes of New Jersey, who spoke about the history of iconography and the vital connection among art, creativity and the spiritual life.
Art critic Dave Hickey says a masterpiece is a work of visual art that is eternally relevant. Art critic Tanya Hartman said of Pawlowska’s masterpieces: “Allow them to guide you to-wards your truest and best self.”

The exhibit will be on display through April 7. Guided tours are offered on Sundays (no tours March 3 and 24), Mondays and first Fridays and Saturdays. Tours are $10, free for ages 16 and younger. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is at 188 S. Swinton Avenue, Delray Beach. Call 276-4541 or visit stpaulsdelray.org for a complete schedule.

Janis Fontaine writes about people of faith, their congregations, causes and community events. Contact her at janisfontaine@outlook.com.

Beachcombers enjoy the breeze, sand and surf during a guided outing at Red Reef Park. Photos by Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

By Willie Howard

Scavenging the wrack zone for shells and sea beans can fill collectors’ baskets and pique the curiosity of anyone interested in the origins of things deposited on the sand.

To learn a bit more about the many things that wash ashore, I attended one of the free Beach Treasures outings offered by Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.

Our beach guide and instructor, Debbie Wilson, began our session with a classroom talk at Gumbo Limbo to give us some idea of what to look for before we hit the beach.

Wilson showed us several types of seashells and the marine animals that live in them, as well as corals, sponges, sea stars, volcanic rock, sandstone, sea glass and “sea beans” or seed pods from plants, many from far-away places.

TOP LEFT: The purple sea snail shell is a real find for beachcombers. TOP RIGHT: The lightning whelk gets its name from bolt-like streaks on its shell. BOTTOM LEFT: Walk leader Debbie Wilson displays a bowl containing golf ball beans, tropical almonds and mangrove seedlings. BOTTOM RIGHT: The sea heart, a seed pod from trees growing in South America and Africa, is carried to Florida beaches by current and wind. Photos by Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

After Wilson’s classroom talk, we drove to Red Reef Park — where we did not have to pay for parking — and headed onto the beach, where we found strong wind, piles of decaying Sargasso weed and purple Portuguese men-of-war, which we avoided after being warned about their venomous tentacles.

Our eager group found several golf ball beans — round, brown seed pods — as well as lighter colored tropical almonds. (Check them out on seabean.com.)

A flip-flop on the sand was covered in gooseneck barnacles, a sign that it had been drifting for a while. Some members of our group were rewarded with treasures, such as the shells of the purple sea snail and the lightning whelk.

“It’s really good for the kids to be out here,” said Jennifer Longinos of Delray Beach, whose son found a purple sea snail.
Allison McCarrick, a winter resident of Lake Worth, used a stick to sift through decaying mats of Sargasso weed to find a sea heart — a handsome, dark-brown seed pod shaped like a heart.

Impossible to ignore was the rubbish on the beach, including plastic bags, baby shoes, flip-flops, drink bottles, shards of plastic and a tiny glass ampule containing something, possibly perfume.

We left the beach with bags of trash to throw away and with a few natural treasures to take home.

Gumbo Limbo Nature Center offers free Beach Treasures talks and walks twice a month. This month’s schedule is 3 p.m. March 6 and 20. Find more and sign up online at gumbolimbo.org.

FWC approves shore-based shark fishing rules

Anglers fishing for sharks from Florida beaches will be required to take a class and obtain a free shore-based shark fishing permit under rules approved Feb. 20 by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The new FWC rules, effective July 1, follow months of public workshops held to address growing concerns that shark fishing from the beach endangers swimmers and harms sharks that are sometimes dragged onto beaches for photos before being released.
Some of the new rules apply to anglers targeting sharks from boats as well as from beaches.

In addition to mandatory education to obtain a shore-based shark fishing permit, the new rules will:

• Prohibit chumming from beaches.

• Require the use of non-offset, non-stainless steel circle hooks when targeting sharks — from land or from a boat.

• Require anglers to cut the leader, line or hook to prevent the delayed release of sharks that are protected from harvest. Twenty-six species of sharks, such as hammerhead, lemon and Caribbean reef sharks, cannot be possessed or harvested in Florida.

• Require anglers to keep protected sharks in the water while releasing them from land or from a boat.

• Require anglers targeting sharks, from land or from a boat, to carry a device that can quickly cut a hook or leader to release a shark.

The shore-based shark fishing permit requirement will apply to anglers younger than 16, unless they are fishing with an adult who holds a permit. Florida anglers older than 65 (who are exempt from the fishing license requirement) also will be required to take a class and obtain the free shore-based shark fishing permit if they plan to fish for sharks from land.

Also on Feb. 20, FWC commissioners banned the harvest of live fish and invertebrates for aquariums from the Blue Heron Bridge dive site near Phil Foster Park, effective April 1.

Jessica McCawley, director of the FWC’s Division of Marine Fisheries Management, said the Blue Heron Bridge dive site north of Peanut Island has become an internationally recognized diving destination.

The ban on live harvest of marine life does not affect hook-and-line fishing, cast netting or the legal harvest of spiny lobster in the Blue Heron Bridge area. Boaters carrying live fish legally taken from other areas will be allowed to transport them through the sanctuary.

Palm Beach boat show set for March 28-31

The 34th annual Palm Beach International Boat show — featuring $1.2 billion worth of boats and accessories on display as well as fishing seminars for adults and children — is set for March 28-31 along Flagler Drive in downtown West Palm Beach.

Hook the Future will present free fishing clinics for kids on March 30 and 31.

Experts with the IGFA School of Sportfishing will offer adult fishing seminars, free with admission, throughout the show.

Admission: $28 for adults and $18 for ages 6-15. There’s no admission charge for children younger than 6.

For information on tickets, parking and transportation maps, visit PBBoatshow.com.

Fishing tournament to benefit Navy SEALs

The Naked Warrior Project and 26 North Yachts will host a fishing tournament March 9 to raise money to memorialize fallen Navy SEALs and to help injured SEALs and their families.

The inaugural Naked Warrior Project Fishing Tournament for kingfish, dolphin, wahoo, tuna and cobia will be based at Sands Harbor Resort and Marina, 125 N. Riverside Drive, Pompano Beach. The captains meeting and kickoff party is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 7 at Sands Harbor Resort and Marina.

The entry fee is $500 per boat. Fishing teams can register and pay online at nakedwarriorproject.org or at 26 North Yachts, 2525 Marina Bay Drive in Fort Lauderdale.

The nonprofit Naked Warrior Project was founded by John Owens, whose brother, Ryan, a Navy SEAL, was killed in action in 2017.

Report encounters with diseased lionfish, FWC asks
Invasive lionfish with ulcers have been found in Florida waters as far south as Fort Pierce, and state researchers are asking anyone who encounters a diseased lionfish to report it.

Lionfish have been found with ulcers that expose muscle tissue. Anyone who finds such a lionfish is being asked to note the number of fish affected and the location. Take photographs if possible.

Reports can be submitted through the FWC Reporter smartphone app or by calling the Fish Kill Hotline at 800-636-0511.

Coming events

March 2: Basic boating safety class offered by Coast Guard Auxiliary, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the headquarters building at Spanish River Park, 3939 N. Ocean Blvd., Boca Raton. Fee $35 ($5 for ages 12-19). Register at the door. Bring lunch. Call 391-3600 and leave a message.

March 5: Boynton Beach Fishing Club meets, 7 p.m. at classroom building next to the boat ramps, Harvey E. Oyer Jr. Park, 2010 N. Federal Highway, Boynton Beach. Free. bifc.org.

March 23: Basic boating safety class offered by Coast Guard Auxiliary, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the classroom building next to the boat ramps, Harvey E. Oyer Jr. Park, 2010 N. Federal Highway, Boynton Beach. Fee $20. Register at the door. Call 704-7440.

March 29-30: REEF’s Winter Lionfish Derby. Final registration and captains meeting 5:30 p.m., March 29, at REEF headquarters, 98300 Overseas Highway, Key Largo. Lionfish diving March 30. Lionfish will be taken to the docks at Sharkey’s Pub for scoring. Entry fee $120 per team of two to four divers. Call 305-852-0030 or visit reef.org.

Nearly 100-pound kingfish caught off Fort Lauderdale

The Happy Day Today crew, including honeymooning couple Mike and Brooke Hayes of Indiana, celebrates the 97.8-pound kingsh that Mike Hayes caught while fishing off Fort Lauderdale Jan. 20. Toasting with the couple are Capt. J.B. Sirgany, in yellow coveralls, and mate Troy McDonald. Photo provided

Nearly 100-pound kingfish caught off Fort Lauderdale

Mike and Brooke Hayes were visiting Fort Lauderdale during their honeymoon in January when they decided to take a half-day fishing trip aboard the Happy Day Today charter boat.

Fishing with Capt. J.B. Sirgany and mate Troy McDonald, Mike Hayes caught a kingfish so big it could have broken a 20-year-old world record — if it had been caught on different tackle.

Jack Vitek, chief of staff for the International Game Fish Association, which verifies world records, said the IGFA would not consider the kingfish for world-record status because IGFA rules prohibit the use of treble hooks when fishing with live bait.

The owner of the charter boat, Capt. Thomas Zsak, said Mike Hayes caught the kingfish using 30-pound-test tackle after it hit a small, live “bullet” bonito.

The Happy Day Today crew was fishing a drop-off along the coast of Fort Lauderdale. Mike Hayes fought the fish for an hour and 53 minutes.

The kingfish weighed 97.8 pounds. It measured 67 inches to the fork of the tail and had a girth of 31.75 inches.

The all-tackle world record for king mackerel, better known as kingfish, is 93 pounds. Steve Graulau caught that kingfish in April 1999 off San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Florida record kingfish — 90 pounds — was caught in 1976 by Norton Thomton off Key West.

Tip of the month

Want to fish spring tournaments for kingfish, dolphin and wahoo? If so, start planning. The KDW tournament season kicks off April 6 with the Boynton Beach Firefighters Fishing Tournament and Firehouse Chili Cookoff. (Visit boyntonbeachfirefighters.com). The Lantana Fishing Derby is set for May 4. (Visit lantanafishingderby.com). Discounts apply for early entry.

Willie Howard is a freelance writer and licensed boat captain. Reach him at tiowillie@bellsouth.net.

Artist Patrick Dougherty puts the finishing touches on his massive stickwork structure at Mounts Botanical Garden. The exhibit, which has five rooms, was built from 30,000 pounds of willow saplings and the help of more than 100 volunteers. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

As you turn onto the Great Lawn of Mounts Botanical Garden in West Palm Beach, you may be in for a surprise. There, in the near distance, you’ll see what looks to be a fort or a maze. But instead of being made out of local coral stone or other rock, it’s made of sticks.

Like many visitors we talked to, you may ask who put it there and, seeing an entry into the structure, you might even wonder if you can enter it.

Welcome to Cutting Corners, a stickwork created by Patrick Dougherty, a North Carolina artist whose medium is, yes, sticks.

It’s named in part for its five rooms with interlocking corners. The rooms range in size from about 14-by-10 feet to a 12-foot square, and the walls stand about 16 feet tall.

Dougherty created his first stickwork in 1982, when he used his carpentry skills and love of nature to create a small piece displayed on a pedestal. Today his creations tend to be like this one — big enough so people are welcome to step inside and walk through his sculpture for an experience that can lead to an emotional connection with his art.

During the past 30 years, he has built more than 250 stickworks from Scotland to Japan to Sweden, and all over the United States, including Miami and Vero Beach.

“This is the first site-specific construction of an artwork in which we’ve ever invested,” says Rochelle Wolberg, curator-director of Mounts.

She was introduced to Dougherty’s art in 2004 while attending a conference in Portland, Oregon. “I was mesmerized with his work and never forgot him,” she says.

In fact, she was the impetus behind Dougherty’s bringing his creative talents to South Florida this year. To create a work that would be well-suited to what Dougherty calls this “gem of a garden,” he came for a site visit last summer and stayed for 48 hours.

That was time enough for him to roughly sketch his ideas on the outside of a manila folder. And that’s all he carried into the field when he returned in January to begin construction of a work that covers about 3,500 square feet.

“I think a detailed drawing can overwhelm reality because it becomes a fixed guide that may not reflect what’s really out there when you start to work. The biggest need on site is to maximize your resources and solve problems as you go,” he says.

And there can be problems when working with more than 100 volunteers divided into teams that work two, four-hour shifts a day for about three weeks, totaling 632 volunteer hours in 159 shifts.

Dougherty likes working with volunteers because it takes some of the enigma out of his art. After all, if volunteers can help create his work, it must be approachable, he says.

The volunteers helped him fashion his work from 30,000 pounds of willow saplings brought by flatbed truck from a nursery in upstate New York. And before you ask, they cost about $8,000 plus $4,500 for delivery.

The building process began with Dougherty and his son, Sam, creating a framework of thicker willow pieces set upright in 2-foot-deep holes around the perimeter of the structure. Then Dougherty showed the volunteers how to weave the thinner saplings onto this framework to cover the uprights and add grace and flow to his work. He designated each volunteer a small area on which to use his or her own creativity to complete the sculpture.

“I think of applying the saplings as drawing. I do with sticks what another artist might do with the marks of a pencil,” says Dougherty.

He also believes that many adults played with sticks as children, so his art conjures up those and other childhood memories, providing a starting point for them to comprehend and connect with his work.

The structure is roofless so that it can better withstand hurricanes. After all, Dougherty’s work is expected to be on view for about two years before it self-destructs and is “gracefully disposed of” without leaving a carbon footprint, explains Wolberg.

Until then, Dougherty hopes that his stick art will resonate with visitors.

“I think my sculptures tap into the viewers’ fantasies and imagination,” he says. “They see a doorway, the start of a path, and wonder what’s around the corner.”

If You Go

Where: Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach

Information: Call 233-1757 or visit mounts.org. For more information about artist Patrick Dougherty, visit stickwork.net

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily

Cost: $10 (nonmembers); free (members); $5 (children 5-12); $5 (students with ID/RAP card; active military with ID)

Tickets: Available online or at Mounts Botanical Garden’s main gate

Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley can be reached at debhartz@att.net.

Sixteen members of Cub Scout Pack 241 from Imagine-Chancellor, a Florida charter school in Boynton Beach, helped city staff in the planting of native, salt-tolerant sea grape trees at Oceanfront Park near the newly completed playground. The other tree species planted were silver buttonwood and clusia. Photo provided

The late Ken Simmons' love of animals made it easy for him to put pets at ease. Coastal Star 2013 file photo

By Arden Moore

I confess. I do have health insurance, but do not have a personal physician. I know, I know. I need to get a physical exam once a year.

But I do have a strong connection with the “physician” for my four-legged family members. In fact, Bujeau, Mikey, Kona, Casey,

Cleo and Mort regularly go to the veterinary clinic for wellness exams, vaccinations, flea and tick preventives and the occasional illness or injury. My pets range in age from 4 to 17 years old.

I am betting I am not alone in booking more appointments for my pets in a calendar year than for myself. Agree?

Because our pets can’t talk to tell veterinarians what’s bothering them medically or emotionally, it is up to us as pet parents to do our homework and find a veterinarian and staff to whom we can relate and feel comfortable that our pets are receiving the best possible care.

I bring this up because when I lived in the Lantana and Lake Worth area for nine years, my go-to veterinarian was the remarkable Ken Simmons, who owned and operated Simmons Veterinary Hospital in Greenacres.

Tragically, he and his wife, Alice, and their golden retrievers, Lily and Bailey, were aboard the private plane he piloted that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 1. Despite intense search efforts, the plane had yet to be found nearly a month later. (See the tribute to Ken and Alice Simmons on Page 1.)

Even though I am barely 5-foot-2 and Dr. Simmons towered over me at 6-foot-8, I never felt intimidated or overwhelmed by him. He patiently addressed my questions, educated me on what was happening to my then cats, Callie, Little Guy and Murphy, and always seemed to find a way to make them purr and feel comfortable during their examinations.

I felt lucky to have found a great veterinarian in him.

Today, my veterinarian answers to the name of Debora Charles. Like Simmons, she has a way of explaining medical terms easily and putting my pets at ease. And, as a bonus, whenever I walk into the front door of the Casa Linda Animal Clinic, even her staffers at the front door greet me and my pets by name.

Now, there are oodles of designated days, weeks and months to salute various people and causes, such as National Beer Day, Polar Bear Plunge Day, Fruitcake Toss Day, Clean Off Your Desk Day and even Wear Pajamas to Work Day.

But until recently, there were no nationally known days to honor veterinarians. Patricia McConnell, a renowned expert in animal behavior and an adjunct associate professor in zoology, simply declared Thank Your Veterinarian Day on April 9, 2018. I sincerely hope this holiday gains attention.

Marty Becker, DVM, best known as America’s Family Veterinarian, applauds her efforts. He is a best-selling author who helped launch the fast-growing Fear Free Pet movement designed to give veterinarians, other pet professionals and pet parents the skills and knowledge to handle pets in ways to reduce fear, anxiety and stress. (Learn more at fearfreepets.com.)

“Veterinarians are pet lovers just like you,” says Becker, who personally has cats, dogs and horses at his home in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. “Veterinary medicine is an extremely challenging profession, and we certainly do not choose this medical profession for the money. The hours are long, the pay is low, the stress is high. Most MDs now focus on one organ, whereas veterinarians must know internal medicine, surgery, radiology, pharmacy, behavior and pediatrics to geriatrics.”

McConnell and Becker offer these ideas to officially thank your veterinarian:

• Send money to a veterinary clinic to be used for a client who cannot afford to pay for a procedure.

• Bring in cookies to the veterinary staff about 3 p.m. in the middle of the week.

• Write a positive review of your experience online.

• Write and mail a greeting card to the veterinary staff when your dog aced his wellness exam or your cat remained calm while getting vaccinations.

• Refer the veterinarian to your friends and colleagues who have pets, using face-to-face conversations. Word-of-mouth referrals are still powerful in this age of tweets and Facebook posts. Rob Martin, DVM, who practices at the Colonial Animal Hospital in Boynton Beach, is a fan of the final idea listed. He has been a veterinarian for three decades and at the end of the workday, he enjoys coming home to what he describes playfully as “an army of dogs and cats.”

“The most important way to find a veterinarian is to find a referral from someone you trust,” says Martin. “A lot of reviews on Yelp or Google are hurtful or not accurate. Seek referrals from people who have a good relationship of say four or five years or more with a veterinarian. A veterinarian they believe does right for them and for your pets.”

I am thinking about getting a T-shirt or bumper sticker that reads: Paws up to veterinarians!

Arden Moore, founder of FourLeggedLife.com, is an animal behavior consultant, author, speaker and master certified pet first-aid instructor. She hosts the Oh Behave! show on PetLifeRadio.com. Learn more by visiting ardenmoore.com.

Madison Nolan hopes to raise $50,000 by March 8 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in honor of her father, Ed Nolan, who died in April after battling lymphoma. On March 5 she wants fellow students to donate $3 each and wear lime green, the LLS color. Photo provided

By Janis Fontaine

Just 17 years old, Madison Nolan of Delray Beach is dealing with a tremendous loss by doing something positive.
Last April 5, Madison lost her father, Ed Nolan, to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

NHL is the most common form of blood cancer — sometimes called liquid cancer — with more than 70,000 cases diagnosed each year in the United States. The disease forms in the bloodstream or lymph system, which carries disease-fighting white blood cells throughout the body.

Madison, a senior at Saint John Paul II Academy in Boca Raton, has been nominated to be one of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s students of the year. The title is awarded to the candidate in each community who raises the most in donations during a seven-week competition, which this year ends March 8. Go to Tinyurl.com/MadisonLLS to donate.

Student of the Year is a philanthropic leadership development program for exemplary high school students. Participants build professional skills such as entrepreneurship, marketing and project management while raising money to fight liquid cancers.
Saint John Paul II Academy requires students to wear school uniforms. The chance to wear jeans and non-school colors is enticing, so charity-driven “dress-down days” are effective fundraisers. But for Madison, her March 5 event will also be a way to honor her father.

“I want everyone to see his smiling face,” Madison said. “He was one of the good guys.”

Madison asks participants to make $3 donations and to wear lime green shirts and jeans to school. Lime green is the color of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Her goal is to raise $50,000 by March 8, but she admits that while the money is important, what she really wants is to see her school dressed in lime green as a tribute to the man who always had a smile and a kind word.
“It’s only been 10 months,” Madison said, “so it’s going to be hard, but I’m super-excited to be making a memory for him.”
Madison says her best friends have really stepped up for her. “It’s easy to talk about him. I want to talk about him, and they understand that.”

Madison was about 5 years old when her father was diagnosed in 2006. “He had a PET scan and it lit up like a Christmas tree,” Madison said.

He was treated with chemotherapy, and Madison remembers when she visited him at treatment, he was the guy who was walking around, laughing and joking and cheering everyone else up. “Nothing ever affected him.”

Ed Nolan was doing well as 2017 drew to a close. He’d made so much progress that doctors thought he was in remission, and the family had a party to celebrate his being cancer-free. In December, he needed a little minor surgery and he didn’t recover from anesthesia well.

Things got worse. The cancer had metastasized to his brain, an unexpected and dire development. “We didn’t think the cancer could do that,” Madison said. “He’d always pulled through before.”

But at the beginning of April, Madison was taking a history test when someone called her to the front office. The staff told her to bring her books. A woman in the office was in tears. “She told me things were bad,” Madison said. Her mom’s sister had flown in from Alaska to help, and she took Madison to the hospital.

It’s still hard for Madison to believe her father is gone. She misses his sarcasm and his jokes, and riding in his Jeep down to the beach. Her father was a 36-year employee of FPL and “he loved his job and he had a group of guys he loved, his FPL guys,” Madison said.

Her mother, Kathleen Nolan, is supportive and proud of her daughter’s efforts to honor her father.

Madison also finds comfort with her dog, Bella, a black Lab mix she and her dad rescued. “She sleeps under the covers,” she said.

Madison wants to go to college, but isn’t quite ready to leave home yet. She wants to become a physician’s assistant.

“I’ve always loved anything medical,” she said. “I’m interested in holistic medicine and how we can treat people using herbs and supplements or acupuncture, as alternatives or in addition to chemo drugs.”

The LLS says that its students of the year have an important responsibility: “We call on those strong enough to fight for others. We need standouts who can stand up to cancer.”

The 78-year-old museum is set to reopen after a 59,000-square-foot expansion that reorients its entrance and adds a sculpture garden

The 19-foot-tall Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, stands in the Heyman Plaza, which forms the new entrance to the Norton Museum of Art on South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Gretel Sarmiento

A soft blue light descends upon delicate Chinese artifacts housed inside dark cabinets. Each has a dedicated source of light announcing it. From a distance, the mechanism holding them vanishes, leaves them floating like fragile notes on an invisible music sheet.

The room is quiet, ceremonial. The song of hammers and drills can’t touch this sacred space. Nobody dares speak. Not our tour guide. Not even to say how this subtle mastery has been achieved.

If the devil is in the details, something is about to become the most importantly devilish cultural destination in South Florida, and its new favorite one: the remade Norton Museum of Art, which is finally making its debut Feb. 9, having undergone a $100 million makeover.

That minimalist mounting work is one of many understated features of the transformed building, which grew its exhibition space by 35 percent. The extra room affords the Norton’s photography collection its own dedicated gallery for the first time.

“It exceeded my expectations,” said Hope Alswang, the museum’s executive director and CEO, who led the aggressive funding campaign and retires next month. “Because, you know, the renderings are so gorgeous. It’s idealistic. It’s a fairytale. And then you get the building and you are like, this is incredible!”

Windows frame a view of the 90-year-old banyan at the entrance to the Norton Museum of Art. Designs throughout the museum echo the circular motif on either side of the doors.

The most noticeable change is the dramatic main entrance, now facing South Dixie Highway, which is framed by a monumental ancient banyan tree to the left and a curious 19-foot pop-art sculpture to the right. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, by Claes Oldenburg and his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, balances deliberately off-center on a reflecting pool that complements the calming white façade.
“It’s unmistakably a museum. It’s unmistakably about art,” said John Backman, project director of the 59,000-square-foot expansion, and the boldest endeavor the 78-year-old institution has undergone.

From the newly restored parquet floors and LED lights to the Quebec-commissioned cabinets holding the Chinese collection, the new structure is clearly dedicated to the mission of celebrating and advancing culture. It manages to do that without coming across as uptight and pretentious, a message perfectly conveyed by that fun Oldenburg sculpture consummating the shaded entrance plaza.

“I like the fact that people of a certain age don’t know what it is, because it starts a dialogue,” said Alswang, who turns 72 in May. “I think that’s not a bad thing, you know, to start asking: what’s going on?”

Other works simultaneously debuting with the rejuvenated museum include an elaborate mandala piece by Damien Hirst featuring a butterfly motif; a group of 16th-century paintings depicting a Chinese lantern festival in Nanjing; and a hand-poured glass installation by artist Rob Wynne extending along a new three-story stairway.

The Norton’s collection of Chinese art is housed in a new gallery with improved lighting. 

Radical design
Designed by renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster, the new building is a drastic departure from the original 1941 design and marks a huge point of differentiation from other cultural venues. There is simply nothing like it in Palm Beach County. It stands ultra-modern but avoids the institutional, clinical air that plagues many modern structures by connecting the interior with the exterior at every turn, such as in the new restaurant.

Further softening the structure’s sleek armor and metal roof canopy are views of the sky and subtropical plants, which are visible through elegant glass panels.

The Norton Museum of Art’s new sign glows in the afternoon light above the museum’s newly reconfigured west façade, which fronts South Dixie Highway.

The use of glass predominates throughout the facility and delivers a particularly striking effect in the Great Hall, from where the robust branches of the old banyan tree can be seen. Opposite from the 28-foot-tall window hangs a new, large-scale tapestry piece commissioned from artist Pae White.

The space, located to the left of the admission counter, has a living-room vibe and treats visitors to comfortable lounge seating, refectory tables and a coffee bar. Fabric wall panels and special acoustic plaster were used for sound-absorbing purposes.
What gives this room that airy, relaxing, light quality? Look up. The 44-foot-high ceiling culminates in a gigantic oculus skylight.

Purposeful impact
The visitor experience was the driving force guiding many tiny decisions, from door handles and handrails to light fixtures and furniture placement. The clarity in the floorplan, which grants visitors a clear east-west line of view, was also deliberate.

Long before the daring expansion broke ground three years ago, the community could sense it would be something special.

For one, the visionary design was by British architecture studio Foster + Partners, whose previous projects include the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Hearst Tower in New York and that translucent Apple store in Kyoto, Japan.

There was no doubt when the vivid renderings of the plan went public. It was audacious, massive and stunning; so much so that gifts from inspired museum trustees and community friends began pouring in.

Last year alone, the museum received a 100-artwork donation from Howard and Judie Ganek and the largest single philanthropic gift in its history: $16 million from Florida native Kenneth C. Griffin. The Norton’s new building is named after him.

Seeing it through completion and leaving it all behind is bittersweet to say the least, Alswang admitted. Under her leadership, the museum added 1,600 new objects to its portfolio. She would like to see it grow more under new director Elliot Bostwick Davis, who starts March 2. That goal should come easier now.

“People want to give their art to a beautiful building,” Alswang said. “They think: ‘Oh, I can give my art to another boring building or I can give my art to a Norman Foster masterpiece.’ Well, I think it’s a no-brainer.”

A large work by Pae White dominates the Norton’s Great Hall, which has a capacity of 400.

The architects also took on the task of designing the garden spaces in a way that furthers the inside-outside compatibility.
Contemporary sculptures by George Rickey, Keith Haring, and Mark di Suvero, among others, now adorn the “great lawn” that behaves like an outdoor gallery. It replaced the museum’s former paved entrance.

Works by 42 students from 12 schools are already up in the new Chris and Bernard Marden Community Gallery, which also enjoys a more generous and brighter space.

Other new exhibitions kicking off Feb. 9 include Modern Spontaneity: Ralph Norton’s Watercolor Collection and Nina Chanel Abney, as the latest in the RAW (Recognition of Art by Women) series.

Museum officials announced there would be free admission on Fridays and Saturdays, and Art After Dark events will now run through 10 p.m.

Since construction hit the final stages in July, there has been a lot of “touch and go,” said Backman.

With only a few weeks until the big reveal, he reflected on this long journey. “You are managing crisis after crisis. You get fatigued. But then you get these moments that wake you up,” he said while recalling one particular glorious night on the job. The parapet letters with dimmable lighting had just crowned the unrecognizable building with a recognizable name. From across the street, Backman looked back at the illuminated building.

“You don’t always expect the real thing to be so much better,” he said. “It was just a breathtaking experience.”

New at the Norton

Visitors will also notice:

• 12,000 square feet of new galleries

• The 210-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art audio/visual quality

• A new museum store and a new restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining

• The Ruth and Carl Shapiro Great Hall serving as the museum’s “living room” and community space

• An artist-in-residence program quartered in six restored historic houses located south of the garden

• New meeting rooms and celebration spaces

Place of Hope CEO Charles Bender III was named to the advisory committee on health and wellness for new Gov. Ron DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez.

Bender, who has more than 25 years of professional experience protecting children and families in Palm Beach County and beyond, was picked to guide the new administration via his skills in the areas of health care and social services.

“This is, personally and professionally, an important appointment for me because it provides me an opportunity to share everything we’ve learned as an organization about how to best help Florida’s children,” he said. “At Place of Hope, the children we help, place in foster care, get adopted and see grow into productive people are just a small percentage of the children we can help statewide.”
With locations in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens, as well as the Treasure Coast, Place of Hope serves more than 900 annually.

New facility debuts for job training, needs
Boca Helping Hands has opened the Justin D. Webb Training Center offering free job-assistance programs.

The new facility houses the Leah and Samuel Hochman Health and Wellness Classroom, a second classroom dedicated in memory of Henry Weitz, an administrative office dedicated in memory of Dr. Herbert Watchtel, and a smaller interview room for professional-development sessions. The building is at 1500 NW First Court in Boca Raton.

Additional no-cost classes include English as a Second Language; The Reading Project, an adult-literacy program; and Living Well, which provides talks about health and wellness, early detection and healthy eating.

Boca Helping Hands also purchased the neighboring Warehouse Pub property, and the city has approved zoning changes to convert it into parking for staff members and volunteers.

Clinics Can Help supplies $1.4 million in equipment
Clinics Can Help is celebrating its life-saving achievements since being founded 13 years ago.

During that time, the nonprofit has served more than 10,000 adults and children in need of medical equipment and supplies in Palm Beach County, totaling more than $1.4 million.

“What we have here now is an organization that was started in a closet by a hospice nurse with a huge heart and has helped thousands of children and families have the best quality of life as possible,” said Bryant Sims, who played an integral role in the formation of the West Palm Beach-based organization. “I think we have a model here for something that can be done across the country.”

Poetry festival fellowships, scholarship winners named
The five winners of fellowships and scholarships to the Palm Beach Poetry Festival are as follows:

• The Langston Hughes Fellowship for African-American poets was awarded to Tyree Daye, of Youngsville, N.C.

• The Kundiman Fellowship for Asian-American poets was awarded to Shelley Wong, of San Francisco.

• The CantoMundo Fellowship for Latin-American poets was awarded to Denice Frohman, of New York.

• The Thomas Lux Scholarship was awarded to Cate Lycurgus, of San Francisco.

• The Sarah Lawrence Scholarship was awarded to Amanda Volel, of New York.

The 15th annual affair wrapped up Jan. 26 at Old School Square in Delray Beach. The three Poetry Festival Fellowships cover full tuition and lodging for the recipients.

“These fellowships represent a substantial investment in education focused on the craft of writing poetry,” said Miles Coon, festival founder and president. “We have been working toward opening the doors widely to the festival workshops and offer participants the opportunity to work together with these exceptionally talented fellows who were selected from the largest applicant pool in our 15-year history.”

Send news and notes to Amy Woods at flamywoods@bellsouth.net.

A record attendance of nearly 700 guests filled the dance floor — and, in fact, all of the Ponce de Leon Ballroom — singing and swaying as legendary artist Diana Ross performed. A little while later, the same guests rolled in their seats with laughter watching superstar comedian Rita Rudner. More than $1 million was raised for disabled veterans through the Pups4Patriots program. ABOVE: Ross with Lois Pope. Photo provided by CAPEHART

First Care Women’s Clinic recognized its most faithful supporters at a special reception that welcomed them into the new Imago Dei Society. The Imago Dei Society includes those who are committed to the clinic’s mission — assisting women with crisis pregnancies and empowering them with information and support. Each was given a Tiffany bowl, filled with candies, as a gift of gratitude. TOP: Scott and Lori Weber. ABOVE: Barry and Loretta Amsdell. Photos provided by Tracey Benson Photography

The Faulk Center for Counseling celebrated its annual gathering to honor local leaders John Crean, Pam Leal and Pamela Higer Polani. Proceeds from the event provide free and low-cost services to at-risk children, disadvantaged families and uninsured adults, none of whom is turned away because of inability to pay. TOP: (l-r, seated) Crean, Polani, Leal, (standing) Sandy Vanegas, Stephanie Cook, Joni Webster and Osvaldo Garcia. ABOVE: (l-r) Doreen Yaffa, Susan Wandersman, Tracy McDonough and Laureen Pannullo. Photos by Tina Valant

Florida Atlantic University recognized Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Making Waves Award. The award, presented during a lecture with the activist, attorney and author, was given in honor of Kennedy’s public engagement. ‘Kennedy represents the values we cherish in our democracy and that we hope to instill in our students as active citizens in our country,’ college Dean Michael Horswell said. ABOVE: (l-r) Dick and Barbara Schmidt, Kennedy, Michelle Maros and Lauren Shawcross. Photo provided