PACE will honor three local women at tea party
The Lee County PACE Center for Girls has selected three more women to be honored at the Second Annual Grande Dames Tea honoring some of our community’s most revered women. One of the honored ladies lived on Fort Myers Beach for 17 years and was the landscape designer of many private homes on the island.
This year’s honorees are:
-Jeanne Bochette – award-winning dancer who performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and Ballet Royal before founding Studio Bochette in Fort Myers, where she has taught the art of dance to thousands of youngsters for nearly 60 years;
-Helen Hendry – long-time Beach resident and one of Florida’s top nursery women and manager of the former Everglades Nursery in Fort Myers for more than 30 years, which supplied tropical plants and flowering trees to Disney World, Cypress Gardens and the New York’s World’s Fair, among others; and
-Veronica Shoemaker – former Fort Myers City Councilwoman who was the first minority ever elected to office in Lee County. Shoemaker’s political career spanned 25 years, and included replacing dilapidated housing in Dunbar, winning a federal desegregation lawsuit, and founding Source of Light & Hope Development Center to house abused or neglected children.
The Grande Dames Tea honoring the three women will take place Tuesday, March 23, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre at 1380 Colonial Blvd. in Fort Myers.
“We are delighted that these three women have agreed to join us for an afternoon of sharing their experiences with the audience and the girls of the PACE Center,” said Grande Dames Tea Chair Dena Geraghty, who also is a member of the Lee PACE Center Board of Directors.
Invitations to the Grande Dames Tea will be mailed in late January. Cost will be $50 per person. Table sponsorships are also available.
This is the second year of the popular Grande Dames Tea, which last year honored philanthropists Berne Davis, Eleanore Kleist and Barbara B. Mann. The Grande Dames Tea was started by the Lee PACE Center for Girls last year to honor women who have played major roles in Lee County history through decades of service, philanthropy and helping others.
The theme of the Grande Dames Tea is The Wisdom of Age – Honoring the Female Spirit. “This is the perfect opportunity for our community and the PACE girls to honor these women, and to learn of the challenges and success of their life experiences,” Geraghty said.
The agenda for the tea will include interaction between the PACE girls and the three Grande Dames, in a question and answer format, that Geraghty said “is sure to be thought-provoking and poignant.”
Co-chair of the event is Andrea Prather of the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, who also is a board member of the PACE Center for Girls, Lee County.
The PACE Center for Girls, Inc., is a non-residential delinquency prevention program targeting the unique needs of girls 12 to 18 years old who are faced with challenges such as foster care, domestic violence, and declining grades. Many girls also experience abuse and neglect, death of a parent, substance abuse, and/or a family history of incarceration.
PACE is a Florida-based, not for profit organization, and the only statewide prevention program for adolescent at-risk girls in the nation. Its mission is to provide girls and young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training and advocacy. Since the Lee County program opened its doors in 2007, more than 250 girls have been served, helping them on the journey to begin lives of dignity and success.
PACE accepts referrals from the juvenile justice system, the Department of Children & Families, school personnel, community services agencies, parents, family members, friends and self-referrals. PACE Center goals are to intervene and prevent school withdrawal, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and welfare dependency, in a safe and nurturing environment.
For information about the Grande Dames Tea or to become a sponsor, please contact PACE Development Director Melissa Simontis at 425-2366, ext. 25, or Dena Geraghty at 851-1028, or visit www.pacecenter.org.
submitted by Susan Bennett