Families, Parks and Recreation
Press
Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact:
Heather Allebaugh (407)
246.3423
Victoria Shade (407)
246.4318
City of Orlando
Receives State Recognition for the Parramore Kidz Zone
On Friday,
November 21, 2008, the Florida League of Cities
announced the City of Orlando as a winner of its City
Spirit Award, a category in the Florida Cities of
Excellence Awards Program. The Florida Cities of
Excellence Awards Program honors municipal leaders and
municipalities throughout the state for devoted
commitment to public service and their ongoing efforts
to improve the quality of life in their cities. Lisa
Early, Director of the City of Orlando's Families, Parks
and Recreation department, was presented with the award
for the Parramore Kidz Zone project.
Modeled after the Harlem Children’s
Zone, Parramore Kidz Zone employs creative outreach to
engage a critical mass of Parramore’s children and links
them to positive opportunities, including
pre-kindergarten education, parenting education, health
care, mentoring, tutoring, and constructive activities
when school is out. Through resources developed by the
program and its partners, Parramore youth are helped
with setting goals for school, work and relationships,
connecting them to tutoring and job training, and
encouraging them to reach their full potential.
The City Spirit Award is given to a
city for a specific, single, citywide effort to
successfully address a local need. Supportive materials
submitted for nominees in the City Spirit Award category
had to describe how their city project was timely,
innovative, effective, successful, cost-effective and
could be adapted for use in other cities. The City was
recognized as finalists in other categories of the
Florida Cities of Excellence Awards Program: City of
Excellence; Mayor of the Year, Mayor Dyer; and Employee
of the Year, OPD Officer Bryant Doyle.
City of Orlando
Mayor Buddy Dyer says of the project, “Children do
better when communities support their success. The
Parramore Kidz Zone is doing this by connecting children
to programs that will positively impact their lives,
while also developing a model of prevention that can be
replicated in other City neighborhoods.”
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