2026 event photos
*Click photo to enlarge and view captions.
March 7, 2026 Annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival
The Friends of the Cape Coral Library booth at the annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival, held on the Fort Myers Regional Library Campus, had art supplies and printed materials available to inspire youngsters to create drawings of Florida Black Bears for the Children's Environmental Art Contest. We collected 51 art contest entries that day. Contest chairperson Alessia; FGCU student volunteer Seth; and FOCCL members Monica, Irene and Shirley were on hand to help the kids. FOCCL sponsored author Wally Lamb this year, and Monica was honored to introduce him to the huge audience that came to hear his presentation. Note: Click on each image to see the caption. (Photos of children were taken with permission of guardian.)
February 28 Burrowing Owl Festival
FOCCL had a booth again this year at the Burrowing Owl Festival in Rotary Park, and it was a busy day. Thank you to the wonderful FGCU student volunteers and to our own members Alessia, Monica, Ying, Barbara and Bonita who helped kids create their entries to our 20th Annual Children's Environmental Art Contest. The theme this time is "Protect our Florida Black Bears," and lots of pictures and materials about this precious species were on hand for the young artists to browse through for inspiration. [Note: all photos of children taken with permission of guardian.]
January, 2026 General Meeting
We had a good turnout of 45 people at our January 17 general meeting that included a dozen guests in attendance. The program for this meeting was an excellent presentation by the Scientists' Society of Southwest Florida that encourages careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Guest speakers included Jacquelin Collins, the current president of the society; Trudy Sampson, liaison for funded programs and scholarship chair; Dave Sampson, science fair judge coordinator; and board of directors member Dick Devlin. In addition, the president of the Cape Coral Solar Car Club, Mason Huffman, spoke about the projects that keep so many local students engaged in the club's fun and educational STEM activities. Special thanks to our Friends of the Cape Coral Library member and publicity director for the scientists' society, Paula Martinez, who recommended this interesting program topic for our first FOCCL general meeting of the new year.