Countywide : Youth Wins Prize for ‘Gift’ Poster

“Children are fragile gifts, handle with care,” reads the poster created by 11-year-old Joseph Taormina. Drawn in colored pencil beneath those words are large hands holding a blue-eyed, ruby-lipped infant swathed in a blanket above the Earth.

The drawing won first place in a countywide competition designed to inform children about child abuse, with the top posters now adorning the walls of government buildings and more than 2,500 classrooms around the county.

A fifth-grade student at Enders Elementary School in Garden Grove, Joseph will be honored at an April 9 dinner in Irvine that kicks off Child Abuse Prevention Month.

At his Garden Grove home Wednesday, Joseph said he had forgotten about the contest, which he entered in fall, until his teacher recently pulled him from a basketball game at recess to tell him he had won.

“I thought I was in trouble at first,” he said.

Joseph competed against 150 kindergarten through eighth-grade students from 45 county schools, and two of his six entries were so good that judges asked him to pick which one should place first.

“He was excited about the prize--$100,” his mother, Ruth Ann Taormina, said. “That’s a big incentive for an 11-year-old who collects baseball cards. I think he was in shock. His mouth just opened, and he didn’t say anything.”

Wearing a black San Francisco Giants cap, shorts and black running shoes, Joseph said he has already spent most of the prize money on a baseball bat, glove, balls and other equipment. Although he has no plans for the remaining cash, he said he may spend it on expanding his collection of 5,000 baseball cards.

An aspiring baseball player and artist, Joseph said his other winning entry depicted a box of eggs with faces on them, with one egg having fallen out and broken. But he added that the winning poster was better because “the hands are giving a child to the Earth.”

Joseph, the youngest of six children in his family, said he liked the theme of the contest because he believes that children are fragile gifts, “and they come from God.” He also said it is important for children to know about child abuse and that his posters “might help.”

His mother agreed, adding that she thinks that the contest was a valuable educational tool.

“I think it’s great because in order to do something about (child abuse), you’ve got to think about it,” she said. “Things like this once were never talked about. By doing posters and entering contests, (youngsters) have got to think about it. And if they don’t know about it, they won’t learn.”

Holding her 21-month-old granddaughter, Ashley, on her lap and holding up more of Joseph’s drawings, she added, “There’s more value on real estate than on kids. Our society has got to make some changes.”

The fourth annual contest was co-sponsored by the Child Abuse Council of Orange County, the County Board of Education and the state Department of Social Services.