Jacksonville Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation has presented awards to several talented young artists, ages three through 12, who submitted entries to the center’s Spring-Easter Coloring Contest.
Director of Business Development for Jacksonville Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Kristi Smith says that the contest received over 150 entries from the surrounding area: “This year we did a Spring/Easter coloring contest in the month of April for our residents to be able to judge some local coloring done by young people from towns and communities in our area. First prize was a Nintendo Switch Lite awarded to our overall winner, who was Ms. Sophia Ingram from White Hall. That entry was chosen above all others by our residents. We also had 3 age brackets that we were judging from with the first being ages 3-5, the second bracket was 6-8, and the third was 9-12. Anybody within the age groups in the community was able to fill out and color an entry and bring it to our building. We also handed out entries at the community Easter egg hunts that were going on at banks and sponsored by local churches throughout the area.”
There were two tiers of voting for each age bracket: resident choice winners and staff choice winners.
The winner in every “resident choice” age group received a $25 Jacksonville Chamber gift check, winners in each “staff choice” category received a $10 Bolt’s Candy, Cones, and Corn gift certificate.
Other winners in the competition were:
Carley Peterson of Jacksonville; resident choice winner ages 9-12
Stevie Clark of Jacksonville; staff choice winner ages 9-12
Madeline Crossin of Jacksonville; resident choice winner ages 6-8
Easton Graham of Chapin; staff choice winner ages 6-8
Harper Prather of Jacksonville; resident choice winner ages 3-5
Savannah Ryan of Jacksonville; staff choice winner ages 3-5
Smith says she hopes to expand the contest and make it even bigger next year: “Jacksonville is a large community. I, personally, am from a smaller surrounding town, so it’s very important to me to include all of our surrounding smaller towns because those people are still included in our Jacksonville community. I’m hoping to have the contest even bigger next year if possible. I’d like to be able to get the information out just a little bit sooner, and then, hopefully get even more participation. The residents absolutely loved it. It colored the walls. We had the entries up for several weeks. The residents and staff just absolutely loved it.”
Jacksonville Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation CEO/Executive Director Stephanie Smith said in a press release announcing the winners that the event is always a joy for both residents and staff to help everyone feel young at heart. Smith says she was also impressed by the amount of talent in the region among all the young artists.