Hendry-Glades Meetings And Events

-An evening with award winning author Charles Sobczak at the LaBelle Beef O 'Brady's located at Lee Street and Highway 80 (2 blocks east of the Hendry County Courthouse) on Monday March 14th. Beef's Meeting Room will be open at 5:30 p.m. for dinner and fellowship before the program. The free program hosted by Hendry-Glades Audubon will begin at 7:00 p.m. Charles Sobczak lives and writes on Sanibel Island, Florida. Some of his fiction and non-fiction titles include: Six Mornings on Sanibel, Way Under Contract, a Florida Story, Alligators and Sharks & Panthers: Deadly Encounters with Florida's Top Predator-Man. . His latest work, Living Sanibel - a Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands, was released in Feb. of 2010. A portion of sales for books purchased at the presentation will be donated to Hendry-Glades Audubon.

-Food safety classes for field and packinghouse workers on Friday March 11 at the UF/IFAS Southwest Florida Research and Education Center at 2686 SR 29 N, Immokalee. These classes will provide a basic overview of fruit and vegetable food safety, including sources of contamination, worker health and hygiene and procedures to help ensure a safe food supply. These classes will meet the training requirements for workers for the state T-GAPs program for tomatoes as well as food safety audit training requirements. Companies will be provided with documentation of training for food safety audits.

There will be two sessions from 10:00 AM to 11:30 in English and from 1:30 to 3:00 in Spanish. Classes will limited to 75 per class and registration will be on a first come/first served basis.

To register, please call Debra Cabrera at 863-674-4092 or email dcabrera@ufl.edu

-The 2011 Big “O” Birding Festival, March 23-26 originating in Clewiston, FL. Scheduled tours for the four-day event include Devils Garden Bird Park, Gatorama, Sunrise & Sunset photo tours on Lake Okeechobee, Dinner Island, STA-5, Witherspoon Mine Mitigation Wetland, Fisheating Creek, Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum’s Boardwalk and more.

Dr. Ken Meyers is an authority on the species and will be the closing banquet’s keynote speaker, as well as one of the festival’s tour guides. Other tour guides and speakers include John J. Lopinot, Paddy Cunningham, Gene McAvoy, Dan Irizarry, David Simpson, Mark & Selena Kiser, Margaret England, Butch Wilson, Dr. Paul Grey, Larry Luckey, Bob Montanaro, Kim Willis, Jody Foster, Janet Papinaw and Mark Renz. www.bigobirdingfestival.com for available tours and seminars.

-Coby Wilkins farewell concert March 13^th 6:p.m. at LaBelle Assembly of God. Coby joined the United States Army and will leaving this Monday for Fort Knox for basic training. The full list of team members are Coby Wilkins Vocalist, Daniel Rodriguez vocalist, David Miller on guitar, Montana Wilkins on the keyboard. Coby Wilkins is a member of LaBelle fire department, and has worked at heartland building company, is a member of LaBelle’s Gathering of Christian Men and he is a graduate of LaBelle high school.

-Ah-Tah-Thiki Seminole Museum – in collaboration with LaBelle Heritage Museum, Clewiston Museum, and Edison State College – is presenting a special community outreach program at Edison State College's Hendry-Glades Center on March 17 at 6:30 p.m. The refreshments
prepared by Cracker Cookin' & Caterin' are courtesy of Riverside Real Estate. Inc. The program is open to the public.