Palm Beach Perspective

Talked with Misty Stoller, Assoc. Dir, Marketing & Communications, Mounts Botanical Garden and Patrick Dougherty, Artist, Stickwork Sculptor/Creator. Mounts Botanical is a 20 acre garden with 25 public display gardens located near the airport on Military Trail in West Palm Beach, Florida. They have a wide variety of programs in the gardens including Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, Watercolor Painting, and Orchid/plant sales. Patrick is currently building his last Stickwork Sculpture at Mounts Botanical and it will officially be open to the public on December 3rd. Folks are encouraged to come to Mounts and watch the build and interact with the artist. Mounts holiday lights is different this year as they focused on Tropical Trees decorated with various plants such as orchids and bromeliads. Tropical Holiday Trees is open for the public to come visit. For more info on mounts, listeners can go to www.mounts.org for more info on Patrick Dougherty's art, they can go to his website at www.stickwork.net.

Talked with Colleen Smith, Founding Artistic and Executive Director of Ballet Palm Beach and Elizabeth Dashiell, PalmBeachPR about their 2022-2023 season. They are currently in rehearsals for their upcoming show, The Nutcracker. They'll be performing at the Kravis Center Saturday December 3rd and Sunday December 4th (two show each day). The next shows will be Queen Esther February 11-12, 2023 and A Midsummer Night's Dream March 31st-April2nd, 2023. Ballet Palm Beach is the only professional ballet company in Palm Beach County and offer a variety of programs including, "Ballet in the Balcony", "Ballet by the Book" as well as "Ballet Ambassadors". Listeners can find out more about the academy, programs, performances, buy tickets, make donations at. www.balletpalmbeach.org.

Talked with Arlene Lazzaro, President, Gem and Mineral Society of the Palm Beaches. Their mission is "to gather people of the Palm Beach Area who enjoy gathering, cutting, displaying and studying rocks, shells, artifacts and other object of interest and to promote community interest in these objects. Their 55th annual Gem and Mineral Show is on November 19-20, 2022 at the South Florida Fairgrounds Expo Center East. They will have gems, mineral, jewelry, bead and fossil shows. Guest lectures, demonstrations, cracking geodes and a mine where you can sieve for gems. Tickets are $9 for adults and children under 12 are free. Two day adult admission is $14. Listeners can get a $1 off coupon on either their Facebook page or the website. www.gmspb.org. The society also offers classes on lapidary, making cabachons, a research library, cold connection metal jewelry classes and more. Listeners can go to www.gmspb.org to sign up for classes, become volunteers, vendors or make a donation.

Talked with Lisa Pugliese-LaCroix, Founder & CEO, Speech-Language Pathologist M.S., CCC-SLP, SPTA/PTR Tennis Professional at Love Serving Autism. Love serving autism is a 501c3 created by Lisa who's mission is "to make a difference in the lives of children and adults with autism through the sport of tennis". They have multiple locations in Florida and have expanded to other states too. This year on November 11th LSA is hosting it's inaugural Match Point Gala which will be it's largest fundraiser. They are working toward building a center in Palm Beach County to offer classes. Donations can be made on their website. Classes are around $10/each but scholarship funds are available. Families are invited to reach out and talk with Lisa about helping their kids try the program. LSA is also looking for volunteers. For more information, listeners can go to www.loveservingautism.org or call 561-331-1903.

Talked with Phala and Oscar from The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. They are celebrating their 30th season. This years line up include a wide variety of artists, comedians, broadway plays, classical music, Nat'l Geographic, Adults at Leisure, Julie Gilbert's writing workshops as well as lots of PEAK performances in the Rinker playhouse. The Broadway series includes: Aladdin, On Your Feet, Wicked, Pretty Woman, Hadestown, Ain't Too Proud, and Tootsie. Listeners can sign up for the Kravis newsletter, follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or twitter. Listeners can also go to www.Kravis.org and get tickets, sign up to be a member, donate, sign up to be a volunteer and also check out their digital brochure of this seasons shows.

Talked with Wendy Sartory Link, Supervisor of Elections Palm Beach County. The next general election is coming up on November 8th. We talked about the three ways to vote: By Mail, Early Voting Location or at your Precinct on Election Day 11/8. Listeners can sign up for voting by mail at the website: www.votepalmbeach.gov. The deadline to sign up for voting by mail option is October 29th. Then listeners would need to sign up again for by mail voting 11/9 as the new law says it's good for one general election. They would be good for 2 years until the Presidential election. If you vote by mail, you must sign your name on the envelope before you mail it back. As for early voting, this year they have added a new option to the Early Voting, you can make an appointment so you can get a designated 15 minute slot to vote. Listeners can vote at any early voting location but must vote at their designated precinct if they wait until Election day to vote. To get more information/sign up to be a poll worker/candidate/get ballot info and more, listeners can go to www.votepalmbeach.org or call 561-656-6200.

Talked with Gabby Barbarite, Ph.D., Director of Outreach & Engagement Florida Atlantic University, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Dave Wood, U.S. Horticultural Laboratory, from the Indian River Lagoon Science Festival. This is the 7th annual IRL Science Fest and is happening Saturday, October 22nd from 10a-3p and 600 N. Indian River Drive, FT. PIERCE, FL. It's a Free event good for all ages that is put on by local scientists/educators to help educate the public and give them the opportunity to talk face to face with the scientists about their work. There are over 50 exhibitors including: Harbor Branch, UF/IFAS, USDA, Treasure Coast Beekeepers, U.S.C.G, St. Lucie County Dive Team, Audubon Society, Smithsonian Marine Station, Ox-bow Eco Center, Max Planck and Indian River State college just to name a few. They will also have food trucks and multiple stage shows throughout the day. The stage shows include Jurassic Parts Spectacular Science Show, St. Lucie Dance Theatre, Treasure Coast Wildlife Center, Ft. Pierce k-9 Demo. Listeners can get more info, sign up to be a volunteer, exhibitor by going to www.IRLSciencefest.org

Talked with Elizabeth Dashiell, Swedefest Palm Beach. According to the website...
"Forever honoring bad remakes of Hollywood hits, SPPB8 takes place at The Kelsey Theater in Lake Park, with an entertainment-packed after party next door at the Brewhouse Gallery. The wildly popular, sell-out event showcases laughably bad, 3-minute remakes of Hollywood hits made by amateur filmmakers throughout Palm Beach County. This year’s showcase of ‘bad films made by good people’ is presented by the Palm Beach Film Society on October 23, 2022 from 6:30PM to 8:30PM at 700 Park Avenue, Lake Park. For the utterly uninitiated, a “swede” is a no-budget, hilarious remake of a Hollywood film — the basis for the movie “Be Kind, Rewind,” which spawned an underground sweding craze and resulted in the first swede fest™ in Fresno, Calif. Next came swede fest™ tampa bay, then swede fest™ palm beach in 2012. Picture “Twister” filmed using balled up paper towels; “The Fast and the Furious” reenacted using children’s Big Wheels – these are only a few examples of the hundreds of films submitted the past six years. Perfect “short attention span theater,” each film is maxed out at 3 minutes, meaning that as “so-bad-it’s-good” as the film may be, another one is soon to appear. The audience votes on the best/worst film made, which could win bragging rights for the future (or not) filmmaker, and a special grand prize. Additional award prizes will also be given for overall epic-ness. It is completely free to enter a swede, and selected films will receive a complimentary ticket for the director. Even if you don’t have a film submitted, seeing the filmmakers dressed in their versions of “Hollywood bizarre” is worth the admission price, which is a mere $12 per person."

Folks can go to the website www.swedefestpalmbeach.com for info or reach out to Elizabeth during working hours at 561-543-8276 to make donations or become a sponsor.

Talked with Owen O'Neill and Matt Lincoln from Clinics Can Help. Clinics Can Help is "a nonprofit agency based in Palm Beach County, Florida that collects used durable medical equipment so that it can be distributed to those who need it most. We are proud to be Florida’s largest not-for-profit organization that recycles and re-uses medical equipment." They work with local agencies and volunteers to provide greatly needed medical equipment including cribs for babies so they have safe space to sleep. They've already provided over 500 cribs this year alone. Matt is the chair for this year's golf tournament. It's one of their big fundraisers benefiting the Kinder Project. Owen said they have a full field but there are still some individuals slots open for listeners to sign up. The registration is on their website www.clinicscanhelp.org. While there, listeners can make donations either financial or equipment, become a volunteer, sponsor an event and find out how to get help. Their 9th Annual Golf Classic will be on Thursday, October 20 at Banyan Cay Resort & Golf, 1900 Banyan Club Road, West Palm Beach, FL 33409 and is sponsored by: Ace Sponsor- Nash Luxury Illustrated Properties plus many more that are on the website. There are still sponsorship opportunities available. For more info, listeners can call 561-640-2995.

Talked with Vanessa Moss and Carrie Browne from Palm Health Foundation. Palm Health is getting ready to launch their October "Train the Brain 2022" Initiative. Train the Brain is a community health campaign designed "to help Palm Beach County residents understand that taking care of the brain is just as important as taking care of the body." This year they are focusing on Celebrating Human Flourishing through the NeuroArts. "Scientific studies have shown that artistic experiences whether visual/auditory or hands-on, change the brain, body and behavior, leading to improved physical and mental health, disease prevention, enhanced brain development." There are lots of events throughout October including a NeuroArts Learning Panel & Lunch on Tuesday, October 18th from 11am-1pm at Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. Seating is limited so reservations are required. If unable to attend, there will be a video on Palm Health's you tube channel later. For more information, to donate, find out about scholarship match, listeners can go to www.PalmHeathFoundation.org.