10th Annual Embracing Our Differences Opens Sunday

The billboard-sized artwork is already up along Sarasota's Bayfront Park, but you might want to wait until Sunday when the exhibit opens for no other reason than to avoid the cold air.

The 10th annual Embracing Our Differences is set to open on Easter Sunday, when it's 77 degrees instead of the cool 50s, but some of the messages might warm you up anyhow.

The messages are also different this year, the Herald-Tribune reports:

“It's gone from being race, creed and color to cyberbullying, body image, homelessness, sexual orientation, gender identity and mental health issues,” says Michael Shelton, one of the founders and executive director of Co-Existence, Inc., the nonprofit organization behind the exhibit.

The Embracing Our Differences exhibit produced by nonprofit Coexistence Inc. blends free educational lesson plans in schools, free field trips and student art and original quotes judged in a worldwide competition. 

The artwork is displayed on posters, 12 1/2 feet by 16 feet, with quotations displayed beside them.

For the past 10 years, the exhibit was exclusively displayed at Sarasota Island Park. This year it will be displayed at Anthony T. Rossi Waterfront Park from March 30 to April 28, as well as Island Park from March 31 to June 2 and at North Port High School May 1 to June 2.

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The exhibit saw 249,000 visitors in Sarasota during last year's two-month run alone—45 percent of whom are tourists, according to Coexistence Inc.

Grace Castilow, a seventh-grade student from Booker Middle School in Sarasota won best-in-show student category for "No one deserves to be limited by another's perspective."

The quotes will be displayed on the same poster of artwork selected for the exhibit.

Out of the 1,972 quotes submitted for the contest, 20 of the winners are from area schools, according to the organization.

For the artwork, 2,400 submissions came from 44 countries and 32 states. The best-in-show adult and student category winners and people's choice for art each win $1,000. 

The Best-in-Show adult winner is Liat Waks from Petach-Tigwa, Israel, for her work, "Differences Work, Just Ask a Fork." The Best-in-Show student winner is "Cyber Bullying: Beware of the Big Bad Predator" by Steven Staub, Bobby Alvarez, and Gennadity Kazimirov, seventh-grade students at Heron Creek Middle School in North Port. 

In the classroom portion, the program works with curriculum development staff from the county school systems to write and provide free lesson plans teachers can use, and the curriculum staff's time is paid for by the organization.

The Writing About Diversity program help teachers find ways for their students to express thoughts about the topic of diversity, according to the organization. 

Students from Riverview High School's International Baccalaureate program will volunteer as docents to guide students and the public through the exhibit.