Each year in September, the Rotary Club of Wellington holds its annual World Peace Day ceremony aimed at promoting multicultural understanding and conflict resolution as a means to achieve world peace.
This year, the ceremony will be held on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 3 p.m. at the Wellington Rotary Peace Park on Royal Fern Drive near the Wellington branch library.
The ceremony is the culmination of work that started in January with competitions within all local schools.
Elementary school students were encouraged to submit posters that depict multicultural understanding and conflict resolution. More than 350 posters were submitted and judged. A winner from each school was chosen and will receive a check for $75 and a certificate at the ceremony.
Middle school students entered poems on the same topic. Approximately 100 poems were received, and the winner from each school will get a check for $100.
High school students submitted essays on a chosen theme. This year, the words of Benjamin Franklin were used: “There is no such thing as a good war, and no such thing as a bad peace.” A winner from each school will receive $125.
All the winners’ teachers will also receive a check for $75 for use in their classrooms.
A single student is also chosen as the person who is deemed to have contributed the most in achieving the goals of the Wellington Rotary Peace Initiative.
Each year, a high school student is awarded the SMART (Student Mediation Award for Resolutions Today) award. A student who helps bring their classmates together receives this award.
The annual Wellington Rotary Peace Prize will go this year to Diana Stanley for her years of service as CEO of the Lord’s Place and their work helping the homeless and less fortunate in Palm Beach County.
The peace ceremony will commence with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Drill Team providing an honor guard and playing “Taps” as flags are raised by Wellington High School Interact members.
The words on the peace poles — “May Peace Prevail on Earth” — will be read in eight different languages by local residents.
After speeches by local dignitaries, including Mayor Michael Napoleone reading the Peace Declaration, and the presentation of prizes, the ceremony will end with Dr. Wes Boughner’s release of peace doves.
Boughner, the father of the Wellington Rotary Peace Initiative, developed the annual World Peace Day ceremony beginning in 2006. Most of the 60 club members have volunteered in some way to help put this program on for the Wellington community. According to the club, “The peace initiative is aimed at reaching out to all within the Wellington community and to bringing awareness of the continuing need for multicultural understanding and conflict resolution as a way forward to achieving world peace. It is especially important that we start this with our students and young people.”
The whole community is welcome to attend the ceremony, which lasts for approximately one hour. For more info., contact Don Gross at wellrotary1@gmail.com or visit www.wellingtonrotary.org.
