This morning I attended the Belle Glade Chamber of Commerce monthly breakfast mixer and had the pleasure of running into James Lee and his business manager Cathleen Laport. I was pleasantly surprised as they had stopped in our store yesterday to say hello and thank us for our meager donation from last year.
The breakfast was well attended and we had a wonderful program on sugar cane provided by the University of Florida (Go Gators!!) Research Center's Dr. Ron Rice. My head was filled with facts about the soil and farming and how environmentally sensitive the cane farmers are! Leadership Glades attendees were there in full force ready to load their bus and spend the day getting educated on ecotourism. Breakfast was provided by Lakeside Medical Center and was great as always.
Upon returning to my office, I decided to learn more about the James Lee Foundation as I was seeing so much publicity about him in the local news. Check out his website as he seems like the real deal.
http://www.teamlee.org/about-us/ I love it when to locals go off, make something of themselves and then return to their roots to give back. I met his mom, Elaine Bain last year in McDonald's at the sign up for his one day football camp. She was extrememly nice. I guess the saying "the apple doesn't fall far" certainly rings true in James' case. I believe we have ourselves a real hometown hero!!
