Page 60 - LIN JAN 2022 WEB FILES

to get readily available and safe vaccines at no cost to them. The
Common Enemy patients’ insistence on freedom ignored
Brought These Winners the high price exacted on caregivers.
Next would come teachers who
Together persevered fluctuating safety protocols

imposed from Tallahassee and whether
to teach from classrooms or via Zoom.
or more than two decades at this Moving on, I would congratulate
F and commiserate with rank and file
time of year I would be making a
list of the local citizens who made
citizens who gave up countless travel plans and chose to stay
the community a better place in the past 12
safely at home. That choice was a bitter pill for those of us who
months. My Sunday column in the Naples
missed family reunions, weddings and funerals – as well as basic
Daily News would culminate in the naming of
sightseeing and globetrotting – solely because of the ignorant and
my Person of the Year.
selfish who rejected the science of vaccines.
by Jeff Lytle No trophies, no cash, no banquet, no Parents would be in line for a special shout-out all their own
parade.
for telling and reminding youngsters what was going on. Parents
Just a big public pat on the back for jobs well done.
worked to adjust work schedules and scramble for daycare and
Before I retired as editorial page editor and TV host in 2014,
other supervision when needed, often without notice.
recipients included:
Employers endured collateral damage when employees got sick
Nancy Payton of the Florida Wildlife Federation, for rising
or chose to stay home. Restaurants, such a large component of our
above repeated brow-beatings from hostile Collier County
leisure economy, were hard pressed to stay afloat.
commissioners in the 1990s to help fashion growth management
Special kudos go to two special efforts in the community’s non-
policies in the county’s eastern frontier.
profit sector.
Jack Nortman, who tracked down a Holocaust boxcar in
First, the Community Foundation of Collier County once
Europe and restored it as a tribute to his mother, a survivor, and
again became a first responder.
as a powerful public education tool at schools and the Holocaust
In addition to all the projects it usually handles, such as grants
Museum.
and scholarships, the foundation launched a
Residents of an East Naples
special fundraising drive.
neighborhood who stood up to developers
Collier Comes Together Fund for
who wanted to put multi-family housing on
COVID-19 Relief brought in $1,644,000 in
the golf course in their back and front yards.
donations to support nonprofits to sustain
Local high school alumni who banded
their operations when they were most
together to care for a disabled classmate.
vulnerable.
Feeders of the hungry, including one who
“While we have not turned the page on
continues volunteer-staffed assembly lines
COVID yet, together we have taken the
to make boil-in-bag meals. Steve Popper
rough, jagged edges of the pandemic and
launched Meals of Hope as a crusade to feed
are slowly but surely smoothing them out,”
other nations, until pressing needs surfaced
say Jerry Tostrud, foundation board chair,
right here at home.
and Eileen Connolly-Keesler, president/CEO. “Together we are
Leaders of three arts and entertainment venues that debuted
returning Collier County to the community we all know and love.”
in the same year – a new headquarters for the then-Naples Art
Meanwhile, the Naples Senior Center stepped to the plate –
Association in Cambier Park, the Sugden Community Theater
twice. The center collaborated with the Collier Health Department
nearby and Hertz Arena, originally Everblades Arena. All three
and legislators to cut through confusion and red tape to get the
uplift and energize the community to this day.
first round of shots into the arms of 7,500 people. When booster
The award winners all had something in common. They
shots were ready, the Senior Center-based team went back to work.
inspired. They led. They raised the bar.
“Our pilot program with the Florida Department of Health
If I were making such a salute this year it would not be for
to help thousands of local seniors in obtaining the life-saving
a single achiever, though all my champions tackled a common
COVID-19 vaccine, and now booster shots, is perhaps the most
adversary -- the pandemic that seemingly would never end, even
monumental undertaking since Naples Senior Center opened its
when we seemed on the brink of the coast being clear.
doors in January 2014,” says Naples
At the very top of the list
Senior Center President/CEO
would be frontline health care
Jaclynn Faffer. “I cannot think of a
professionals who, after risking lives
more worthy task that demonstrates
to treat the first wave of patients,
the vital role our organization plays
risked treating a second. Those
in serving the critical needs of older
patients showed up on hospital
adults in Collier County.”
doorsteps because of simple refusal
60 Life in Naples | January 2022