The 1.26.2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Art Contest Awards ceremony took place, celebrating the best turnout for the event to date. The Mayor's office, in conjunction with the Diversity Committee, organized the contest, which featured art, writing, and poems inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. The event recognized winners across elementary, middle, and high school divisions, awarding certificates and Amazon gift cards ranging from $50 to $100. City Councillor Andrew Raposa and State Representative Paul Schmidt were in attendance, along with representatives from Senator Roderick's and Representative Fayola's offices. The speaker, representing Mayor Coogan's office, thanked the committee, including Asia Greis Elena, for their work in narrowing down the numerous excellent entries. The ceremony highlighted the high quality of student work, with some entries being described as "tremendous." In the elementary division, Sakura from Tansy School placed third, Alicia from St. Michael's School placed second, and Lennox from Espirita Santo earned first place. For the middle school division, Rashad from Morton Middle School secured third, Cecilia from St. Michael's School took second, and Sam from Espirita Santo won first. High school winners included Kevon from Durfee in third place, Jasmine from Durfee in second, and Roman in first place. The ceremony concluded with thanks to all attendees and participants, and an encouragement for future contests.
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i just want to thank everybody for coming today um this is our best turnout since we've been doing these awards with arts and writing and poems and it is absolutely spectacular and we do have a great great group of kids with us today that are all well deserving and we probably have as you can see from the pictures laying in the walls we probably should have another 100 150
0:25winners in here but we can't do that and i want to thank the committee that uh narrowed down the um the award winners because i could never do that it's too tough but i do rely on others i want to thank a couple of people that especially helped out one of our a good friend she's a member of the diversity committee asia greis elena these are the people that put
0:47together the the program and did it for you also with us today are a couple of our elected officials and some of their representatives we have one of our new city councillors uh he's wearing two hats today because every time we have a contest he brings down a load of winners and today he's also here as both principal of espirita santo and city councillor one of our newly elected guys we look
1:15forward to working with him andrew raposa we're also extremely fortunate that we have one of our state representatives with us today again he keeps his pulse on what's going on in the city of fall river always pitches in for events like this always takes an interest in the kids and we're really glad he came down to spend a little while with us today representative paul schmidt thank you
1:42uh but i know you're not here to hear a politician blather on we're here to give the awards and make sure the kids get the recognition they deserve so let's go right to our elementary division first um elena's going to kill me if i say this name wrong our third place winner is from the tansy school sakura and we'd love her to come on up and get a rewarding certificate
2:14so all the kids will be getting a certificate so we don't have to read every single one sakura an honor and recognition of of your outstanding entry to mayor coogan's 2022 mlk art contest earning you third place in the elementary school division let's turn around this way show you that hold the closer and here's your gift card um for amazon fifty dollars you spend it any way you want don't let your parents have the
2:49card
2:58and again this was a poster or a poem or an essay or a painting that we allowed the kids to do about martin luther king uh very very important figure in american history and we were overwhelmed with the entries second place from saint michael's school alicia where's alicia come on so it's the same kind of an award an honor and recognition of your second place finish in the elementary division
3:31at st michael's school we got a lovely poster for alicia and someone wants to grab a picture we have it up here and alicia gets um 75 a 75 amazon gift card spend it and have fun and our first place winner we're gonna have to acknowledge our principal again we don't want to do that too much because we're trying to be careful this young man did a great job um um he was first place
4:06lennox from a spirit of oh this young man this is funny because this is why i love my job so much because her mother was my student so that shows how old i am but we're still dealing with the sullivans so lennox gets first place for outstanding entry in the mlk art contest and we really really appreciate your work we'll see if someone wants to grab a picture of this this is great and she wins
4:44a hundred dollar amazon gift card don't give it to your mother you buy something you want um now we'll move to our middle school division same exact same format um this person goes to morton middle school this young man did a great job he wrote a very passionate poem about what it felt like to be with mlk during the protests in march in washington rashad come on up so this is let's just turn around here
5:29we'll see we get this picture for everybody over there and this this uh this is a great honor i'm glad you go to morton thank you very much for your entry and it's the same thing for you you spend your 50 and have some fun we're gonna go back to st michael's for the second place winner in the middle school division um she wrote an essay asking mlk if he felt afraid or how
6:01he felt knowing that he may be risking his very own life for his work it was a great peace uh cecilia let's turn around and get a picture with your mom come on pull that same thing for you here's 75 amazon gift card go have some fun regretfully we got to go back to a spirit of santo again um this will be andrew's last time he comes to one of these events so he's
6:42i want to i want to thank him for sending us sam he wrote a poem about the importance of treating every person as a human and breaking down the assumptions we have with the different groups that we need to speak up to so is sam here today congratulations great work yeah let's get a picture if they want to take it for your parents or anything and you get the grand prize of a hundred dollars
7:14thank you go have some fun oh okay cool oh yeah no kidding i'm sorry guys i'm glad uh i'm glad my friend representative schmidt came today we have two other people with us um i don't see where they went oh they're hiding over there um caitlyn rowley from senator roderick's office he couldn't be with us but he was kind enough to send the representative and another one of my former students genesis
7:46gallon that's called i said it wrong for 20 years so she knows what i'm going to say but we really appreciate them from senator um from representative fayola's office also with us as christian mccluskey he works with us in the city on youth outreach and all the programs related to that but before we wrap this up with our high school division um in third place from durfee uh we have a very he had
8:17wrote a very creative fictional story of what it would be like if martin luther king appeared out of the blue asking what do you think of politics and musics in the world music in the world today kevon from durfee
8:45sure oh i'm sorry and here's your fifty dollar amazon gift card have some fun though thank you our second place winner wrote an sa thoughtfully asking why people chose to discriminate in many different ways and asking mlk about how his work was connected to other civil rights campaigns before and after him and i do want you to know i did read all these and um one of the people that works with me we
9:19have a running battle about whether he's written by our students or were they written by kids that are harvard because they were so excellent and the work was so great i was i was just floored um she insisted they were written by all of our kids so it was just tremendous tremendous amount of great great work these kids did for us um jasmine from durfee come on up so we'll get a picture together jasmine opinion
9:51ninth very nice congratulations okay jasmine gets her 75 amazon card um and this this other this last piece was very moving when i read it very very very very moving piece um it was an essay about comparing his own experiences to the struggles of mlk while talking about the importance of being an ally and raising his is your voice for the common good or for the good of all people roman
10:35let's get a picture over here roman there you go right here thank you here you go and there's your 100 gift card don't spend it all in one place um well this wraps up today's awards ceremony i can't thank you all enough for taking time on your busy schedules to join us it's a pleasure working with your kids there will be more contests coming we encourage you to enter them um i don't
11:08know when the next one will be she doesn't either we'll think of something i do want to thank asia she she helps us with all this stuff she's a grinder and she comes down and looks at all these pictures and helps us to order it up and it's very very important that we connect with these children and again watch the parking ban going into effect this weekend stay warm this weekend and thanks
11:35everybody for coming i really really appreciate it