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Man making and donating banners for graduating seniors
A business owner in Eustis has come up with a way to honor Lake County's Class of 2020, with special banners.
EUSTIS, Fla. - A Florida man is making banners for every graduating high school senior in his home county.
Entrepreneur Timothy Totten, of Eustis, runs a business that makes "Hometown Heroes" banners for military members. He wants to use that idea to honor Lake County's Class of 2020.
“Right now, people aren’t going into downtowns that much,” Totten said. “It’s much quieter and we thought who could we honor right now that could really use a boost?”
The idea started with just wanting to make them for Eustis High School seniors.
“If I want to live in a nice place, I have to be one of the people making that happen, and I also can leverage the people in my community to help,” Totten said. “I get an idea. I go ask hundreds of people to help me and it turns out my community wants to be involved.”
Then, Totten got the city’s mayor involved.
“So, I started calling other city leaders and the excitement was unreal,” said Eustis Mayor Michael Holland said.
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About 3,000 banners will be made, and Totten is footing the bill.
“It would be too hard to go ask everyone in this current economic climate to say, ‘Hey you all need to pitch in some money,’ Totten said. “So, those who can, can pitch in some money.”
Eustis plans to hang its banners up in its downtown. Other communities will pick where theirs go.
“Each of the students, they’re going to get their banner in the end,” Totten said. “So, they’ll have something to remember being honored in their town.”
The goal is to have all of the banners up by the middle of May so that they can stay up for the entire month of June.
To learn more about the banner program, click here.
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