2 Students Win Bicycles In ContestsWINONA LAKE – Coronavirus-themed contests at Jefferson Elementary School and Lakeland Christian Academy earned two girls a new bicycle from Trailhouse Village Bicycles.
Jefferson Elementary School students were invited to participate in an art competition where they drew a picture of a hero.
Fourth-grader Katie Robertson, 10, won with what Winona Lake Town Marshal Joe Hawn described as a “slam dunk picture.”
Robertson colored a picture of her aunt, Kari Davis. Davis is a respiratory therapist in Ohio who works third-shift and runs the ventilators, Robertson said of her aunt.
“And her husband has coronavirus and she has two kids,” Robertson said.
Hawn, who had received a grant through the Dr. Dane and Mary Louise Miller Foundation to take Lakeland Christian Academy eighth-graders to a baseball game, said since sports were cancelled, he had to come up with another idea.
“I saw a competition they had done out in Arizona like this,” Hawn said. “I thought it would be a good idea to have kids here do it and give them something to do.”
Hawn said he contacted Cindy Hepler, a board member of the Dr. Dane and Mary Louise Foundation, and she helped reroute the baseball game grant money for this new idea.
“We were really hoping to get something that had to do with the medical field,” Hawn said of the hero drawings, and Katie’s “was pretty slam dunk.”
Over at LCA, students in grades seven through 12 were invited to participate in an essay contest about “What your thoughts are on coronavirus.”
Hepler said they received about 15 essays from students that were all several pages long and quite detailed.
Kathryn Monsma, 15, and an LCA freshman, won with what Trailhouse Village Bicycles Owner Barry McManus described as “awesome.”
Monsma said during the health emergency, she’s been trying to reach out to friends and encourage them, “and remind them of God and his peace,” along with building on her hobbies and working on relationships.
Monsma said she plays several instruments, likes to sing, write and do “creative things.”
“It’s a scary time, and we should take it seriously, but we can’t go and quarantine and stop life altogether,” she said. “We can use it as a chance to grow.”
“The kids really opened up about what’s going on in their minds and hearts,” Hepler said.
Gifts cards to businesses in The Village at Winona were given to participants in each grade level at LCA and all Jefferson Elementary participants also received gift cards, Hepler said.
