The recent Earth Day event in Maple Ridge proved that people can celebrate the planet in many different ways, with both photographers and poets being honoured at the awards ceremony in Memorial Peace Park.
The annual contests held as part of the city’s Earth Day celebration give out awards to both children and adults for a variety of creative works, with a select few invited to present their award-winning projects on stage.
The poetry contest involved three different categories, with the contest organizer Ronda Payne explaining that she was thrilled with the response from the community this year.
“We had a wonderful turnout this year with poems, probably the best outcome we’ve had in many years,” said Payne. “There’s so many wonderful and talented poets in our community.”
One family in particular dominated the contest, with three siblings taking home three of the prizes for their poems.
In the children’s category, first place went to Audrey Blusson, second place to Joshua Povazan, and third place to Annabel Povazan.
Aliya Graham won first in the youth category, with Julie Matheny earning second, and Sofia Povazan getting third.
The adult category had Antoinetta DeWit getting first, Katheryn Learmonth getting second, and Paula Pereira getting third.
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Ross Davies, who runs the photography contest, said that each and every entry they received this year was absolutely fantastic.
Mayra Ramirez won both first and second place with her close-ups of ducklings.
Third place went to Karen Horne, and the youth prize was given to nine-year-old Tallis McRobbie.
Earth Day event organizer Leanne Koehn said that she was also blown away by the quality of work in both the photography and poetry contests.
“Every year we have such amazing entries and I think it really inspires the next generation to connect the arts with activism, which is one of my passions as well,” said Koehn.
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