IBERIABANK and the Lafayette Mayor-President’s Office are calling for nominations for the Third Annual Project Front Yard Awards. The awards are given annually to recognize individuals and organizations in Lafayette who are working to improve the face of the community.
Nominations will be accepted in four categories; Best in Cleanliness, Best in Beautification, Best in Education and Overall Best Project Front Yard Effort.
“Project Front Yard is not a department or a team,” says Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux in a release. “It’s an initiative to create awareness. It’s important that we recognize those individuals and organizations that enhance our community’s appearance and inspire others to be a part of the movement.”
According to Robideaux, the Project Front Yard Awards were created to highlight groups and community members who work tirelessly to improve the face of the community on issues of cleanliness, beautification, and education.
Project Front Yard partner IBERIABANK will host the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 6, to honor the recipients.
“We are excited to have been at the start of a new tradition that continues to recognize and celebrate those in our community who are doing the right thing to create a beautiful Lafayette,” says Jerry Vascocu, IBERIABANK Acadiana President. "We look forward to more opportunities ahead and are excited about our community's future."
To be eligible, individual nominees must either live or work in Lafayette Parish and organizations for nomination must be located within Lafayette Parish. The nomination deadline is Sept. 26. More details including the 2016 Project Front Yard Award Nomination Forms can be found at www.ProjectFrontYard.com.
During the Second Annual Ceremony in September of 2015, four awards were given to honor individuals and organizations that embody the mission of Project Front Yard:
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Best in Cleanliness was presented to NeunerPate for their beautification project of the Veterans Affairs Clinic and War Memorial
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Pastor Ken Lazard of Destiny of Faith Church was honored for Best in Beautification for his work in revitalizing the neighborhood known as the Truman area
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ReCover Acadiana, a subset of The705, was awarded Best in Education for their partnership with Project Front Yard on the storm drain cleanliness awareness campaign, “Where the River Meets the Road”
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Episcopal School of Acadiana teacher Sandra Thompson received Best Overall Project Front Yard Effort for going above and beyond. Thompson encouraged one of her six year old students, Amelie Gomez, to write a letter to Project Front Yard when she expressed a desire to get involved with community cleanliness. Along with the school’s administrative leadership and Project Front Yard, Amelie took the lead in creating a 20 minute documentary on how trash ends up in our local waterways and affects the local ecosystem. The video is now used as an educational tool for her peers and a 5 minute version of the video is on display at the Lafayette Science Museum for all our community to watch. Thompson developed a curriculum to go along with the video for local educators’ use in the classroom in teaching children about the watershed and life cycles of litter in our rivers.