VINTON–The Vinton Luncheon Lions Club has announced the local winner of the Lions Club International Peace Poster Contest for 2015-16.
Sloan Morton, an eighth grader at William Byrd Middle School, won first place and will advance to the district competition. Her parents are Brad and Tricia Morton. Rob Mitchell is her art teacher at WBMS.
This is the third year the competition has been sponsored by the local Lions. This year’s poster theme is “Share Peace.”
Lions Clubs International sponsors the program “to encourage students to express what peace means to them,” so that “we may all have greater tolerance and international understanding.”
More than 350,000 entries are submitted annually in the worldwide in project. Nine students in Mitchell’s art classes at WBMS submitted entries, including Kaylee Shrewsbury, Bryce France, Joshua Baldwin, Luke Safut, Claire Webb, Justice Meador,Logan Hardman, Montana Barber, and Morton.
The posters are judged on originality, artistic merit and portrayal of the contest theme. Seven members of the Vinton Luncheon Lions Club (VLLC) and one community member judged this year’s local contest.
Morton said that she chose her design which included a helping hand, a globe, and peaceful animals—a butterfly, hummingbirds, and a dragonfly—to show that “everyone should be a part of world peace–anywhere and everywhere.”
The contest is open to young people ages 11-13. They are allowed to choose from a variety of mediums to create their poster.
The winners advance through several judging levels from local to district, to multiple district, and international. Eventually one grand prize winner and 23 merit award winners are chosen. The international winner is awarded $5000 and a trip to the final awards ceremony. The merit winners receive $500.
The annual contest has been held for over 25 years and millions of children from almost 100 countries have participated during that time.
Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest service club organization with more than 1.36 million members in 46,000 clubs in 210 countries and geographical areas around the world. Since 1917, Lions clubs have aided the blind and visually impaired and made a strong commitment to community service and serving youth throughout the world.
The Vinton Luncheon Lions Club takes on many service projects in the Vinton area each year.
“Our next big project is providing gift certificates to some William Byrd Middle and High school students,” said VLLC president Betty Reynolds. “We feel that the young children in our area have different groups providing extra gifts for them during the holiday season. However, there are also older students who would appreciate and need something extra this time of year as well. We are actually doubling the number of gift certificates that we have given the past several years.”
They will also be having a booth at the Vinton Christmas Parade scheduled for December 3.
