Young Artists, Athletes Bloom In What’s The Good News
There’s always plenty of good news happening around the Quad-Cities, and here in What’s The Good News?, our cooperative effort with the good folks at KWQC-TV6’s “Paula Sands Live,” we highlight some of the awesome things happening around our area!
Have something you want included next time around? Email Sean Leary at Sean@QuadCities.com. We’re happy to help!
Now let’s get started in taking a look around the local spots for some positive and upbeat news…
Young Artists Bloom At Figge Museum
Young artists from various schools around the Quad-Cities, including Eugene Field Elementary in Rock Island, pictured here, will have their artworks on display alongside the Grant Woods, the Warhols and Monets at Davenport’s Figge Museum.
The exhibit begins Feb. 17 and will be on display through the end of the month. Check it out and discover the talents of some of the new and upcoming creators in our area.
East Moline’s Nache Headed To Olympic Development Program Squad
East Moline’s Deontae Nache has been selected to the U12 soccer Olympic Development Program team for Illinois! He’ll be representing the state in the Inter-regional games this weekend in Memphis, Tenn.
Deontae tried out for the team against players from throughout the state over the winter at the ODP camps in Naperville, and was selected from among hundreds of kids to participate in pool play. The ODP is the preliminary training path to playing for team U.S.A. in the Olympics.
Deontae is the son of East Moline coach Anthony Nache and plays for East Moline.
Need A Dress For A Special Occasion, Like Prom?
Looking for a great dress but don’t want to deal with the high prices?
Have a dress or two to donate for a good cause?
Davenport Public Library is offering people the chance to donate clean and gently used prom dresses to the Davenport Public Library to help support our Dress Giveaway program in March! All styles and sizes are needed. Make a difference in a local teen’s life and drop your donated gowns at the Library any time during the two dropoff days: Saturday, February 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Eastern Avenue Branch or Friday, February 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fairmount Street Branch.
Looking for a formal dress for prom or a different special event? The Davenport Public Library is here to help. Choose from community donated, gently used prom dresses and find the dress of your dreams. All styles and sizes available. Dress options are first come first serve. No need to sign up or bring anything, other than yourself. The library will be holding the Dress Giveaway on Saturday, March 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fairmount Street Branch. On the day of the exchange, local area high school students can browse the donations and take home one garment each.
For more information, see www.davenportpubliclibrary.com.
Local Union 25 Helping Veterans
Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union 25 is always helping build, and build up, our local community. They donated their workmanship to help build the Hot Glass Gallery in Davenport, raised over $3,000 for local charities in their last golf tournament and next week, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 21, they’re holding the Bridging The Gap Homeless Veterans Stand Down Event.
The event will be held at the American Legion Hall, 702 W. 35th St., Davenport, and they’ll be helping to move tables and chairs, unloading clothing and food donations and serving up food to veterans.
It’s good work for a good cause, and as always, the Local Union 25 crew is helping to build those bonds in our community as it helps build up its infrastructure in plumbing and pipefitting.
For more information, see https://lu25.org/.
A Benefit For Tucker
Tucker Hanson has not had a very easy go of it for the first 10 years of his life. He’s a great kid, who’s been a friend of my son and I for a while, and whom I coached for a number of years in little league. And it’s all the more impressive what a great kid he is when you consider the arduous path he’s had to travel in terms of his health issues over his first decade of existence.
A benefit will be held for Tucker and his family to help with medical costs from noon to 3 p.m. March 24. The benefit will feature entertainment, silent raffles, various foods including a taco bar and more.
When His mother was pregnant, she was told that her boy’s kidneys were enlarged. They knew he would need a kidney transplant at some point. There was a lot of traveling back and forth to Iowa City for treatments.
In December 2010, they were told Tucker needed to be on dialysis until he received a kidney transplant. He was on it for six months. On August 6, 2011, they got a call that they had a kidney for him. Everything was going great until one day he was having a hard time breathing. They went to found out that his heart wasn’t working that well.
In 2014, they were told he needed a mitral valve replacement. On May 11, 2015 he received his first open heart surgery.
They spent 10 days in the hospital and when they got home they thought everything was going great. Until one day he threw up blood. Tucker ended up having emergency surgery to get a chest tube in and get out the fluids around his heart. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on. They ended up spending two months in the hospital and on July 11 they ended up opening his chest up to see what was going on. Tucker had some stitches that came unstitched. They fixed it and they came home 10 days later.
Now, they come to Iowa city for appointments every 3 to 6 months. Lately they been in the hospital a lot due to Tucker not feeling well or his INR either too low or too high. They are doing a biopsy to see if his kidney is rejecting his body. This benefit is to help them out with their medical bills that are coming, and other expenses.
These are some great folks and a great kid, so please don’t hesitate to help out.
For more information and to donate, see https://www.facebook.com/events/2296998373853920/.
Bill Fowler Benefit
Bill Fowler passed away on December 10, 2018. It came as a shock to all of his family and friends because his life was taken so tragically. He left behind a wife and three young children.
Friends are gathering together to hold a benefit from 2 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Leisure Time Billiards, 845 Avenue of the Cities, East Moline. There will be live music, a raffle and other entertainment and specials.
This benefit is to help the family through this tragic time. Bill always put his family first and was a very caring, funny, and hard-working man.
For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/events/704754389924500/.
Buy Some Books, Help Some Women In Need
As I have done every year for the past six years, I will be donating half of the proceeds from all sales of my poetry books to local domestic violence shelters.
The books, which are predominantly romantic poetry, include Beautiful Remnants of Chaotic Failures, Danger Maps, Every Broken Heart Creates The Pieces That Make Up The Path To The Place Your Heart Will Call Home, Tricks Of The Light, The Ties That Bind, There Is Truth In The Untamed Beat Of A Heart, Infinite Sky, Physics and Beauty, Magnets and Mysteries Soft Curves And Comets, We Are Shadows In The Absence of Light, The Soft Venom of Promise and The Night Universal.
The books can be purchased on Amazon.com and www.seanleary.com.
Storm Gives Back
The Quad City Storm, “the team that gives back,” hosted a Hockey Fights Cancer Weekwhich began with a Paint the Ice Event on February 6 and ended with a win over arch rival Peoria Rivermen on February 9. The game drew a crowd of over 5,000 and raised $21,700 for Gilda’s Club of the Quad Cities.
The Storm’s Giving Back Campaign, #QCSTORMCARES, has now raised over $64,700 in only 16 games with hopes to raise $100,000 for local charities before the season ends in April.
Watch for other updates and announcements on our website (www.quadcitystorm) and follow along with us on our social media platforms on Facebook (search Quad City Storm), Twitter (@QuadCityStorm), Instagram (@qcstorm). Our office hours are Monday through Friday 9:00am-5:00pm and Saturday by appointment only and our team can be reached by calling 309-277-1364.
ON Digital Expanding To Las Vegas, Washington D.C.
ON Digital Publishing, the parent company of QuadCities.com, is expanding their slate of entertainment franchise sites to Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., meaning that some Quad-Cities-based podcasts and columns by local creators, including Sean Leary’s entertainment column and Weekend in 2 Minutes podcast, will be getting an even bigger audience nationwide.
ON Digital owns over 400 sites across North America and is in the process of franchising out their brand of entertainment, positive news and digital programming to those sites. There are currently more than a dozen sites that are live and active, in markets including the Quad-Cities (www.quadcities.com), Cleveland (www.oncleveland.com), Baltimore (www.onbaltimore.com), Cincinnati (www.oncincy.com), and more.
ON Digital is currently looking for writers, videographers, photographers and other creators in markets across the U.S. If anyone is interested in being a part of the digital frontier, contact Digital Media Director Sean Leary at Sean@QuadCities.com.
Have some good news you’d like to have featured? Message it to seanleary@seanleary.com or sean@quadcities.com!
