{"id":1206,"date":"2019-08-04T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2019-08-04T20:12:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T00:12:11","slug":"4th-annual-summer-palooza-draws-thousands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/08\/04\/4th-annual-summer-palooza-draws-thousands\/","title":{"rendered":"4th Annual Summer Palooza draws thousands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Polk County’s biggest back to school bash packed out the RP\nFunding Center’s Jenkins Arena on Saturday for the 4th Annual Summer Palooza,\nas thousands of area students gathered for the day of celebration, new\nbeginnings, and a brand-new school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosted by New Beginnings High School, in conjunction with\nnumerous major community sponsors, students started lining up outside at 6\na.m., said Ashlee Wright, founder of New Beginnings and of Summer Palooza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wright said it took a team of 40 volunteers to pull together\nall the elements of the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of vendors and sponsors filled the arena, to distribute not only 3,500 backpacks stuffed with school supplies, but also free tennis shoes, toiletries such as shampoo, towels, and washcloths, and beauty supplies. Students toted large bags of free groceries, along with toys and educational games. Even 12-year-old boys and girls could be seen carrying stuffed animals, holding them tightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students received free haircuts, hairstyles, and manicures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Celebrity guest LeToya Luckett was welcomed by great applause and was invited to a roundtable discussion of what it takes to help children succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckett, a former member of the R & B girl group\nDestiny’s Child, won two Grammy Awards and sold over 25 million records and\nlater branched out into a solo career of her own as an artist, actress, and\nmusician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she comes from a family of educators, and that many young people want to be a performer when they grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Regardless of what I wanted to do about my career, my\ngrandmother said ‘what about school?'” said Luckett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It takes education to make sure your business is taken\ncare of,” Luckett told the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the presentation, she spoke about the decision to separate\nfrom Destiny’s Child and go into other professional endeavors, and what she\nwould say to encourage teens who face big decisions in their lives, both now\nand when they grow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is fine to bounce ideas off others, she said,\n“It all comes down to you. So being able to have a moment to center,\nreally think things out and get still, has been a very important part in my\ndecision-making, and of course, prayer. I pray before I make any kind of\ndecision.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A talent contest awarded $500 for first prize, and $250 for\nsecond prize, as area teens took the stage. Additionally, the Lakeland Magic\nheld a free throw contest and gave away T-shirts and tickets to Magic games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County’s biggest back to school bash packed out the RP Funding Center’s Jenkins Arena on Saturday for the 4th Annual Summer Palooza, as thousands of area students gathered for… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}