A group of kids in the Lakes of Northwood neighborhood sold more than 300 tie-dyed face coverings to raise money for St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.
It’s the accessory everyone’s wearing this fall, and not because it’s the hottest new fashion.
Local ordinances throughout Florida have made face coverings mandatory, and some creative Wesley Chapel kids have found a way to turn people’s need for masks into an opportunity to do good.
In The Lakes at Northwood neighborhood, located just off County Line Rd. and Bruce B. Downs Blvd., the Burnett, Caruso, Peretsky and White families have 10 kids between them, ages 5-13. They often play together outside.
When the pandemic hit, the kids started talking to each other about doing something helpful in their community.
“They wanted to be able to help other kids, in light of what was going on with Covid-19,” says Katie Burnett, who is mom to Jackson, Mackenzie and Alaina.
Katie says her kids – along with Diana, Ellina and David Peretsky, Mason, Kate and Troy Caruso and Josiah White — came up with the idea to raise money and donate it to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa.
They started with a lemonade stand. The idea grew when Katie and her husband Matt, who own Kona Ice Wesley Chapel, received a box of plain, white, reusable cloth masks to share with the community.
That’s when the kids decided to sell not only lemonade, but individually designed masks, too.
They took their revenue from that first lemonade stand and bought a tie-dye kit. Then, they got to work making fun summer art, using dozens of the masks as their canvases.
Their parents spread the word on social media, and then the kids took turns selling the masks on Saturdays in their neighborhood.
Late this summer, they tallied up their earnings and were able to make a $350 donation to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital. Parent company BayCare Health System’s senior vice president & Hillsborough County market leader Kimberly Guy stopped by the neighborhood and the families presented her with an oversized check — also made by the kids.
“They got really excited when Kim told them the money would be used to buy toys for kids at the hospital,” says Katie. “That helped make it real for them.”
John and Sheri Thrasher opened Excel Music on Cross Creek Blvd. in 2006. They have adapted their business model to meet online student needs during the pandemic.
For more than 14 years, Excel Music on Cross Creek Blvd. in New Tampa has been teaching private music lessons to students of all ages. But lately, something has been very different than “business as usual.”
Since March, all of Excel Music’s students have been taught exclusively virtually.
“The nature of in-person music lessons doesn’t permit social distancing,” says Excel Music owner John Thrasher, “so we’ve chosen to do virtual lessons.”
He says the school’s building, located in the Cory Lake Isles Professional Center on Cross Creek Blvd., has remained closed since the Covid-19 pandemic began in March. However, Excel Music’s 20 teachers and dozens of students are as active as always, teaching and learning from their homes.
John says all of Excel Music’s teachers are either university trained (many with Master of Music degrees) or they have at least 10 years of study and performing experience.
The music school offers lessons in voice and practically every instrument, with piano, violin, guitar and drums being the most popular, according to John, and quite a few students learning brass and woodwind instruments, too, such as trumpet, tuba, saxophone and clarinet.
Students work with the same teacher week after week, so although their teachers are now only on a computer screen, the student still know them.
“It provides some normalcy and routine in their lives, when a whole lot of normalcy and routines have been removed,” says John, who adds that the school has continued to add “a steady stream” of new students throughout the pandemic.
“Obviously, parents are just as interested in improving their children’s lives as they always have been,” John explains. “Music is still important, and virtual lessons are kind of the only way that you can do it right now.”
A Little Background Music…
John and his wife Sheri originally opened Excel Music in 2006, with the dream of providing the opportunity for young people to be trained for the kinds of careers and lives they once experienced themselves.
“We both had long careers in music, and were professional musicians who were able to make a living performing,” John says, adding that he was the drummer for country singer Mickey Gilley for many years, which gave him the opportunity to perform on TV, at the White House and for people all over the world.
In the 1990s, John and Sheri had success together with a band of their own in Japan called Tz, where he says they sold tens of thousands of CDs. They also found themselves immersed in a culture that revered teachers, which led them to start thinking about passing on the knowledge and experience they had gained to the next generation.
“We met tremendous people, saw great places, and made a living,” John says. “We started thinking, ‘What if some of the kids who come through our school can experience what we’ve experienced?’”
However, John says he and Sheri recognize that the vast majority of their students will not go on to have professional music careers.
“Our teachers are good enough for that type of student, but most of our students will go on to have another career, such as a doctor or lawyer or something else,” he says.
He adds that the goal at Excel Music is to provide students with an appreciation for music, plus provide the benefits of learning how to play and/or sing.
“There’s so much data about how great studying music is for your brain for spatial learning and big-picture thinking,” John explains. “There are always studies coming out saying that because music is a whole brain activity, when kids learn music, their math and other school skills improve, too.”
Kristy Sargent, who lives in West Meadows, says her 10-year-old daughter Regan has been taking piano lessons for more than a year with Excel Music.
“Both the school and her teacher have been so amazing,” says Kristy. “They’ve been very flexible with being online. It hasn’t been easy to have everything change so much, but they’ve done a really, really good job.”
Kristy says one of her favorite things is how well the teachers communicate. “It’s a fantastic school that feels very personal. It feels like they really care about you and your child.”
The Right Teachers, Too
John and Sheri want each one of their students to feel that way, so they carefully choose only the best instructors.
They ensure that every teacher they hire to work at Excel Music is background checked, has appropriate credentials, and truly knows both their instrument and how to teach it. John says that just because someone has a doctoral degree in music or some other accomplishment,that doesn’t mean they will relate well to teaching students.
“They have to know how to teach, which is a completely different set of skills,” explains John, who says that — over the last 14 years — he has tried to show New Tampa families that they can trust Excel Music to make great decisions about who to hire to teach for the school.
He says two teachers have been with Excel Music since it opened in 2006, and a number of others have stayed with the Thrashers for five, six, or eight years.
“We definitely have stability,” he says. “We’ve been doing this for a long time.”
Age Doesn’t Matter
And, while many of Excel Music’s students are kids, the opportunity to learn to sing or play an instrument is certainly not limited by your age.
“A lot of adults want lessons, too,” says John. “We get retired people who say they’ve wanted to play their whole lives, and now they’re finally going to do it.” He fondly recalls a man who came to Excel Music to learn how to play the trumpet at 86 years old!
Dylan and Diya Arun give a thumbs up to online learning with Excel Music.
John says the last few months have been extremely trying and that he and Sheri — like virtually all small business owners — are just trying day by day to make the best decisions they can for their company, their employees and their customers. However, at the end of the day, they feel really good about the nearly 15 years they’ve spent leading Excel Music in New Tampa.
“We’re putting music in people’s heads,” he says. “We’re not making widgets that end up in landfills; we’re doing this thing that’s good for our community and for the world in general.”
Excel Music, located at 10353 Cross Creek Blvd., Suite I, is open for virtual lessons only right now. For more information or visit ExcelMusic.org, call (813) 991-1177.
(L.-r.) Girl Scouts Amelia Beanland and Isabela DuBois present the “snuffle mats” they and their Troop 32801 made to Pasco County Animal Services, as part of their Silver Award project.
We’ve all had to do some adjusting since the Covid-19 pandemic started in the spring.
For a pair of eighth grade (now ninth grade) Girl Scouts, the pandemic meant that they faced obstacle after obstacle while trying to earn their Silver Awards, which is the highest award given by Girl Scouts to its Cadettes, who are girls in sixth through eighth grade.
Fortunately for Isabela DuBois, who lives in Cory Lake Isles, and her project partner, Amelia Beanland, who lives in Cross Creek, they learned how to be flexible, adapt and persevere when things don’t go as planned.
The girls earned their Silver Awards before bridging to Seniors at the end of July.
Isabela has been a member of Girl Scout Troop 32801, which typically meets at Benito Middle School, since Daisies, when she was just six years old. Amelia joined the troop when she was in sixth grade. Currently, Troop 32801 has been meeting through Skype.
That’s just one of the changes the girls faced in trying to complete their project.
“Our project is called ‘Don’t shop, adopt,’” Isabela says. “We came up with it because we both have a passion for dogs.”
She says they researched puppy mills and worked to educate people about what they learned. They made a flier and created Instagram and Facebook accounts to educate people about the importance of adopting a pet, rather than shopping for one.
Then, they put their research into action by partnering with Pasco County Animal Services to support its efforts to rescue and find homes for dogs in need.
The girls made “snuffle mats”, which are used to hide food or treats for dogs. “We raised the money, bought the supplies, made them, and donated them,” Isabela says.
However, that wasn’t their original plan.
Isabela’s mom, Crystal, who is the assistant leader for the troop, says she was impressed with the girls’ ability to adapt.
Crystal explains that the project originally included three girls and was going to focus on awareness of pre-teen and teen anxiety. When one of the girls was diagnosed with anxiety, they thought it was too sensitive and came up with the new idea, focusing on helping dogs. Then, the third girl chose to do a different project, and Isabela and Amelia moved forward without her.
They started by organizing a volunteer day at the Pasco County Animal Services shelter in Land O’Lakes when Covid-19 caused the shelter to close its doors to volunteers. The girls had to figure out what to do next.
They called the shelter, which recommended they make the snuffle mats. The girls then raised the money to get supplies by hosting a “virtual bake sale,” where they delivered goodies to people who bought them online.
Isabela and Amelia then bought the supplies for the snuffle mats, including fabric and rubber mats with holes in them, and a representative of the shelter taught the troop how to make the mats via a Zoom meeting.
“They kind of got hit up against a wall and figured out a different way around it,” says Crystal. “They learned some strategy skills.”
The girls were each required to contribute 50 hours to the project, and both Isabela and Amelia exceeded that requirement.
“This took a lot of work,” says Isabela. “We had to change our project from our original plan, then we also had Covid, and we had to change it again. It got harder at the end because we couldn’t meet to do stuff. It was very difficult and stressful.”
Isabela says she is happy to have received the award, given by the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, but she is more proud of her efforts and says she learned a lot during the process. “I want people to know how to find a proper breeder, kind of like a background check, and how to adopt properly and make sure the pet they adopt is healthy,” she says. “And, if you don’t want a dog, you can still help. You can donate to shelters or volunteer at a shelter.”
Isabela says she and Amelia had money left over from their fund-raising efforts after they made the snuffle mats, so they asked the shelter what kind of food was used, then ordered it and had it delivered.
“People can do that, too,” Isabela says, “and it’s not super expensive.” She says her journey in Girl Scouts is far from over, as she plans to earn her Gold Award, too.
“We’ve done archery, camping, gone canoeing, paddleboarding, ziplining and horseback riding,” she says. “They teach you First-Aid and life skills you won’t learn anywhere else. And, you make friends. I’ve learned so many things that I never would have if it wasn’t for Girl Scouts.”
Search “Florida Girl Scouts against Puppy Mills” on Facebook and on Instagram at “Dont.Shop.Adopt.”
Dr. Sam Jureyda and Radiance Orthodontics in Tampa Palms have more than 100 reviews on Google, and all of them are 5 stars. The staff invites you to Google “Radiance Orthodontics” to see what patients have to say about the practice. (Photos courtesy of Eric Bunch)
Tampa Palms resident Kellie Lightbourne says she’s a very particular person, especially when it comes to her family and their teeth.
You’d expect that from a former Mrs. USA and veteran television personality.
So, when it was time for Kellie to choose an orthodontist for her 12-year-old twins, she went to several offices for consultations.
She says it was when she met Sam Jureyda, D.M.D. (Doctor of Medical Dentistry), of Radiance Orthodontics, located in the Tampa Palms Professional Center, that she knew she had found exactly what she was seeking for her family.
“Dr. J is amazing,” she says. “He sat with my kids, talked with them, interacted with them and made them feel welcome.”
That’s a big deal for Kellie’s son, Niko, who has special needs. Kellie feared he wouldn’t cooperate with an orthodontist working inside his mouth.
“Once Niko decides he’s not doing something, there’s no way he’s going to do it,” Kellie says. “I thought orthodontic treatment would be a nightmare, but now he’ll do it for Dr. J because he likes him so much. Now, I have no fear.”
Niko’s twin sister, Landyn, immediately liked him, too. “Dr. J was so different than all the other orthodontists because he actually talked to us,” Landyn says. “It wasn’t boring. He actually made it sort of fun and interactive. He made us feel very comfortable and he’s very funny.”
Dr. Jureyda has spent more than 25 years practicing orthodontics. Before moving into private practice in 2006 — and subsequently opening Radiance Orthodontics in 2016 — he taught graduate-level students at the University of Buffalo, NY.
As a former educator, he believes his own practice is improved by education, as he strives to give his patients access to modern options that lead to the best possible outcomes. He knows each patient has a unique set of needs and is sure to treat each individual with a personalized and completely customized treatment plan.
His goal is not just to treat the patient, but also to involve the patient in the process — even the youngest among them — so they are invested in their care and have a positive experience at Radiance Orthodontics.
“We believe in building a relationship with each patient,” Dr. Jureyda explains, “educating, supporting and encouraging them. We look forward to your visits as time spent with a friend, and we genuinely hope you will feel the same.”
Radiance Orthodontics offers traditional metal braces, along with clear braces, and also offers treatment with InvisalignTM, which uses invisible, removable, comfortable aligners to straighten teeth. The method is constantly improving and is now so effective, it often works more quickly than traditional braces.
Adapting To Keep You Safe
Like all orthodontic practices, Radiance Orthodontics was required to shut down for several weeks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During that time, Dr. Jureyda and his staff continued to answer phone calls, text messages and emails to help their patients.
“Dr. J” provides quality orthodontic care and your health and safety are his top priorities. Photo provided by Radiance Orthodontics.
When the office reopened, the same stringent cleaning protocols that have always been practiced were followed, and enhanced procedures have been added, such as temperature checks and health screening questions.
“We have temporarily closed our waiting room and now ask our patients to wait in their cars,” says Dr. Jureyda. “Simply call or text us when you arrive, and we’ll let you know to come in as soon as your room is ready. We’re being extremely cautious at this time, to protect all of our patients and staff.”
‘Consultations Are Free?’
Justine (who asked that we only use her first name) is a University of South Florida medical student who recently began treatment at Radiance Orthodontics.
In January of 2019, Justine signed up with a company that promised to close a gap between her front teeth by sending her aligners in the mail. While her first choice would have been to go to an orthodontist in person, she didn’t think she could afford it.
“I don’t have dental insurance and I thought braces would cost $6,000 to $8,000,” she said. “I didn’t know consultations are free.”
Justine says the next 12 months with the mail-order company couldn’t have been further from her expectations. The aligners did not move her teeth, which caused them to not fit properly as she tried to continue her treatment. When she had questions — such as if the painful sores she was developing were normal — she had no medical professional to ask. She says the company’s customer service department replied in form letters that were sometimes not even relevant to her question.
When the aligners didn’t fit anymore, the company offered to send her modified aligners. She did her own impressions at home, and sent them in. She didn’t receive the new aligners for eight weeks. At that time, they no longer fit her teeth and she had to start over. After the third modification, with still no progress happening to fix the gap between her front teeth, she gave up. She decided she needed to see an orthodontist in person, and scheduled an appointment with Radiance Orthodontics.
She says she wishes she would have done it much sooner.
As she discovered, consultations at Radiance Orthodontics are completely free and are always no-obligation.
“The cost is much less than I thought it would be,” Justine says. “And it’s worth it. I’m a young adult without a lot of experience. I didn’t know there were discounts for paying in full, or that the pricing would be built around monthly payments and a payment plan.”
She says the experience is already vastly different than with the “do-it-yourself” aligners, including attachments being placed on her teeth to hold the InvisalignTM aligners in place.
“Dr. J was listening,” Justine says. “It was such a stark difference than when I had no one to turn to.”
Serving The Community, Too!
One hallmark of Radiance Orthodontics is that Dr. Jureyda remains committed to being a partner at almost all of New Tampa’s public schools. As a business partner at our two high schools, three middle schools, and seven elementary schools, Dr. Jureyda actively supports the PTAs and students in our community.
“We truly miss being able to be out in the community and attending events at our local schools,” he says. “We consider it a privilege to support our local students and educators.”
To ensure that Radiance Orthodontics is accessible to everyone, especially during these uncertain times, Dr. Jureyda makes accommodations in both scheduling and payment plans. Some evening and Saturday appointments are available, and Radiance Orthodontics also works with patients to determine orthodontic benefits through dental insurance and provide affordable payment options.
“My reputation relies solely on how I treat each and every patient,” says Dr. Jureyda. “I take that very seriously.”
To read reviews about the practice, Google “Radiance Orthodontics,” where you’ll see that every review is a five-star rating. In addition to more than 100 ratings on Google, the reviews for Radiance Orthodontics on Facebook, Yelp! and Healthgrades are also exclusively five stars.
Radiance Orthodontics is located at 17427 Bridge Hill Ct., Suite A, in the Tampa Palms Professional Center. For more information, please visit MyRadianceBraces.com, search “Radiance Orthodontics” on Facebook, or see the ad on page 21. To schedule your free consultation, call or text Radiance Orthodontics at (813)-972-1100.
For one Wesley Chapel teenage entrepreneur, every Friday is Black Friday.
In conjunction with her online store selling T-shirts that promote positive messages for black teenagers, Janiah Hinds also posts a video every week of someone who is important in black history. She begins each video with “Welcome to Black Friday…”
The 15-year-old, who lives in Country Walk and will soon start her junior year at Wesley Chapel High, hasn’t missed a Friday since she first came up with the idea last fall.
She says it started with brainstorming in her room one day.
“I thought of stereotypes of African Americans and I wrote them down,” she says. When she showed them to her dad, an entrepreneur and business coach himself, he encouraged her to put the list on a T-shirt to sell.
Janiah’s online store now carries T-shirts that dispel those stereotypes, plus three additional T-shirt designs that celebrate being black. For example, one popular shirt says, “Black is ambitious, powerful, intelligent, resilient, hardworking.”
She also created a limited edition design for Juneteenth that sold out.
Janiah named her business “Slay It Proud,” which she says means to “rock the message proudly” and also is a tribute to the song, “Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud” by the late, great R&B superstar James Brown.
She says it’s also a nod to her 13-year-old sister, Joelle, who also is a young entrepreneur herself. Joelle started a business selling press-on nails, called “Slay All Day Nails,” last year.
“When I was younger, I never would have thought I would have my own business selling T-shirts,” says Janiah, “but I’m glad that I have this opportunity and that I can use my platform to spread black history.”
That’s what Janiah says is her true passion — sharing black history with teenagers and others.
So, she came up with the idea to post the weekly videos. With the self-imposed responsibility of posting so much new content, she says she now takes suggestions and also does quite a bit of research of her own.
In the past couple of months, she’s posted videos about Ida B. Wells, a prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the early 1900s; a famous “hypocrisy speech” delivered on July 4, 1852 by Frederick Douglass; as well as one about the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun in the 1980s, Lonnie Johnson.
“A favorite person of mine would be Shirley Chisholm,” Janiah says. “She was the first African American woman in Congress. When she (ran) for president of the US, she wasn’t allowed to be on the stage and debate (against the other candidates) because she was black. She had to take legal action to be allowed to participate.”
In 1972, not only was Chisholm was the first black person to run for a major party nomination for U.S. President, she was also the first woman ever to run for the presidential nomination for the Democratic party.
Janiah’s dad, Kymone Hinds, says he also is learning from his daughter.
“From a young age, Janiah has had a heart for people who are in need and those who are forgotten about. In addition, from the time she was first exposed to black history, she has become a self-student — doing self-studies in that area — and has helped to educate me on important figures in black history that I didn’t know about.”
Janiah says her business is just the start. In the future, she says she hopes to become a civil rights lawyer and help bring justice and equality to people.
As she sees Black Lives Matter protests happening throughout the country, she sees an opportunity to change the world for the better.
“I hope that what’s going on now can bring a better change for future generations, especially future generations for people who look me.”
Janiah has even been featured on local TV news stations, including a February interview on WFLA-TV News Channel 8 (screenshot, right)).
And while Slay It Proud was founded with black teenagers in mind, Janiah says it’s not limited to them.
“A lot of white people and people of other races have supported my business and bought my ‘Black is’ shirts,” she says. “To me, it’s saying that you see something is wrong and you want to fix it and change society for the better.”
Her dad sees Janiah as a young leader. “In any movement for change, people are playing different roles,” says Kymone. “There are those on the front line making sure it stays in view and those pushing for change at the political level. Her role is helping people to understand black history. Here is a true education, besides the limited scope of slavery and the civil rights movement.”
Janiah’s website is SlayItProud.com, where you can view all of her merchandise and access her virtual African American museum. She posts her Black Friday videos on Facebook and Instagram. Find them by searching “Slay It Proud.”
