EcoFest 2012

Learning Gate Community School is hosting its 3rd Annual EcoFest.

EcoFest 2012 is a community event organized by Learning Gate Community School to celebrate the many businesses, organizations, and individuals in the Tampa Bay area dedicated to the principles of sustainability – Ecology, Equity and Economy.

EcoFest 2012 will be held on April 14, 2012 on the school grounds  at  16215 Hanna Rd in Lutz, Florida. The event will be open to the public from 9:00 A.M. until 3:00 P.M. Admission to the event is free.

There will be live music, workshops (including building rain barrels and creating container gardens), demonstrations, informational booths, green living products and services. Some local artists, green businesses, environmental organizations, alternative health practitioners, renewable energy specialists, organic farms and gardens with produce. EcoFest at Learning Gate Community School is Saturday April 14 from 9a to 3p. It’s a free event for the community and will feature over 100 green vendors as well as some relevant workshops like building rain barrels and collecting rain water, creating a container garden and a presentation by Tampa Electric.

Presentation	Speaker
How to Conserve and Store water as our natural resource	Virginia Overstreet - Water Wise
Making a difference, Recycle, Garbage, reusing.... Keep our County Beautiful	Pat Deplasco - Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful
Growing Scientists Hands-On Environmental Projects	Jim McGinity - Learning Gate
What is composting, and how nature processes organic materials	Monica Ragukas
Project Based Learning at Learning Gate Middle/High	Summer Solomon - Learning Gate
Garden Containers- easy gardening for everyone	Kray Funch
How to effectively store rain water and how it benefits us	Shelly Stein
Greening Your Environment - How you can inspire others to be more eco-friendly and earth conscious.	Lisa Custer - Going Green Tampa

I know Virginia Overstreet. She has a fantastic Florida Friendly Yard in Seminole Heights.  Her workshop will be very good.

Misleading SH Patch "Best of Seminole Heights" Customer Service Contest

Seminole Heights Patch is holding a contest "Who Has the Best Customer Service in Seminole Heights?"  Currently the finalists are Sherry's Yesterdaze and  the Milk and Honey Tea Shop.  However Milk and Honey is not located in Seminole Heights, it is on west Busch Blvd, in Lowry Park Central area. 

The owner of the Milk and Honey does not know which neighborhood he business is located.  She said "actually we are in Seminole Heights. Busch Blvd is the dividing line between Seminole Heights and Forest Hills/Old Carrollwood, and we are on the South side of the road."

Of course it is not the dividing line - Hillsborough River is.

SH Patch's response has been "Seminole Heights Patch's coverage extends beyond Seminole Heights. We cover a good hunk of Central Tampa, as far north as Busch Boulevard. While the Milk n' Honey Tea Room and Gift Shop is outside of the Seminole Heights neighborhoods (it's actually in Lowry Park Central), it is just inside our coverage area and eligible for our readers' poll. Besides, even if Milk n' Honey were just outside our "technical" coverage area, we would likely include it in our poll since it's clearly so relevant to a lot of our readership."

What would people think if the Tampa Tribune held a Best of Tampa contest but allowed businesses from St. Petersburg to apply since they are in the coverage area? 

Seminole Heights has spent a long time branding its identity.  Its should not be watered down by Seminole Heights Patch.  They should either rename the contest such as "Best of Central Tampa" or "Best of Seminole Height Patch Extended Coverage Area" or remove Milk and Honey from the contest.  Let them know your thoughts about that.  In case they keep it with its misleading title, I urge readers to vote for Sherry's Yesterdaze at her SH Patch listing and on the SH Patch Championship site.

Here is how the voting is handled

In this final championship round, each poll vote is worth 1 point, each favorable comment on this story is worth 20 points, and each favorable directory review written during the polling period is worth 50 points. In addition, we'll award 200 bonus points for the business with the most total favorable reviews on their directory listing overall.