RAPID CITY, S.D. — The Live Like Lilli Foundation recently sponsored a billboard ad contest for local middle school students to participate in.
The ‘Look UP- life exists beyond your phone!’ billboard ad encourages students to engage in life, not spend so much time on their mobile devices, use their phones for good, and set limits on usage.
The winner this year was Audrey Garrison, an eighth grade student at Saint Thomas Moore Middle School. Her drawing portrays a student as a puppet who is controlled by social media. Garrison won $100 prize money.
Garrison says, “I see people’s moods being swung by things happening on their phone. A lot of times they are on their phones instead of going outside and making memories that they will remember and you don’t remember anything that happens on your phone.”
The billboard is located on West Blvd and West Rapid Street in Rapid City.
The Nehrings say that it’s a message their daughter would have encouraged to others. Lilli didn’t own a phone and was always fully involved in life’s moments.
Stacey Nehring, co-founder of Live Like Lilli Foundation, says, “That is how she [Lilli] lived her life, just taking it all in. Everything was a full body experience and I feel like she was so happy and just content. And I think also, what if she did have a phone, the phones suck your time away and so those short times of 13 years we had her… was just so grateful that she didn’t have that [phone] and no time was sucked away from that phone.”
They also awarded second and third prize winners and honorable mentions for the Billboard Ad and those were printed into big posters and put in the schools.
The family hopes to expand the contest to more billboards and some day make it nationwide.
A Southwest Middle School teacher decided to implement the Look Up! message in her digital photography class.
The family continues Lilli’s legacy of kindness by also sponsoring dance scholarships with Prima Dance for girls who attend Girls Inc. The Foundation also hosts other events throughout the year.
They may look into the future to include high school students in the billboard contest.
Click here for more on the Live Like Lilli Foundation.
Looking for more news and information? NewsCenter1 Media Group has you covered go to NC1.TV today for all of your Western South Dakota and Wyoming news today.
