Fort Bend Lifestyles and Homes magazine Dec 2008: Miss South Texas American Teen 2008, Allison Seward

Allison Seward, a 17-year-old Clements High School junior, has a passion for pageants and children ’s literacy. She has used her celebrity as a pageant titleholder to promote children ’s literacy initiatives throughout the state of Texas for the past four years and hopes to one day pursue it on a national level.

Seward is the founder and chairperson of Tomorrow’s Leaders are Today’s Readers, a reading program designed to help inspire and educate children on the importance of reading. In order to enhance her program, she wrote a coloring book called Set Sail on a Reading Adventure! and has created bookmarks, both of which are available on her Web site www.allisonseward.com. She has also developed a children’s board game called Book Worm.

This past summer, Seward sponsored a Reading Awareness Day at the Burleson Public Library in Burleson, where she introduced her reading club called Allison ’s Angels. Allison’s Angels was a big success with more than 250 children signing up and becoming members. As well as signing up for the reading club, children participated in a story time with guest readers and learned about the library offerings from the children ’s services librarian.

Methodist Sugar Land Hospital opened its largest expansion facility in its history, more than tripling beds and doubling operating space.

The $300 million expansion adds 189 beds for a total of 243 beds at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

“When we opened our doors 10 years ago, we made a commitment to our community to provide excellent health care to the citizens of Fort Bend County, ” said Chris Siebenaler, CEO of Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. “We’ve evolved far beyond what used to be called a ‘community hospital.’ Today’s Methodist Sugar Land Hospital offers physicians and patients the same leading-edge technology and complex procedures that were once found only in the Texas Medical Center. ”

Methodist Sugar Land Hospital’s expansion introduces the latest

diagnostic and therapeutic technology to Fort Bend, featuring a whole-body 3 Tesla MRI, found only in the nation ’s top academic medical centers, and a 64-slice CT scanner, one of the first units of its type in the Houston area.

Hospital services have expanded in critical care, emergency department, surgery and imaging, and a new women ’s services floor is dedicated to obstetrics and gynecology patients.

The hospital held a special event for physicians and community leaders, and more than 350 people attended to hear about the new facility and tour the patient floors, operating rooms and emergency department.

More than 600 employees, physicians and volunteers attended a multi-faith blessing, which included blessings from local Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders. •

Bill Schwer, chairman of the board, Methodist Sugar Land Hospital; Karen Daly, assistant city manager public services; Thomas Abraham, at-large, position one council member; Russell Jones, council member, district three; Becky Chalupa, RN, associate chief nursing officer; Lonnie Meadows, board member, Methodist Sugar Land Hospital; Chris Siebenaler, chief executive officer; James Thompson, mayor of Sugar Land; Jacqueline Baly Chaumette, at-large, position two council member; Sue Chiang, vice chairwoman of the board, Methodist Sugar Land Hospital; Donald Olson, council member, district two; Janet Leatherwood, RN, chief nursing officer; Karen Glynn, assistant city manager administration; and Lowell Stanton, chief financial officer.

Heart thru Art, founded by Kim Henry, a participant in the Self Expression Leadership Program of Landmark Education, held its first community fundraising event.
Heart thru Art is a community fund-raising event that fosters an enriched community spirit by bringing the people of the Sugar Land area together to appreciate the arts through the diverse cultures for the greater cause of giving back to the children in need throughout Fort Bend and Harris counties.

Henry discovered the nonprofit organization Art Bridge, which brings the expressive arts and art therapy into the lives of children in homeless shelters.

The mission for Heart thru Art is to raise money to provide art programs for homeless children and to combat the despair of homelessness by nurturing hope and self-esteem through the joy of art expression. The art therapy classes provided by ArtBridge serve a population of children already exposed to serious losses and pain such as family upheaval, chaos, neglect and often domestic violence. The monies raised are used to facilitate art therapy by Art Bridge for the children at the DePelchin Richmond Center located in Richmond.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the donated space at Town Square by the SLTS Management Company and the gifts donated by Mi Luna ’s Restaurant, Sam Houston Race Park and Vineyard on the Square. Janet Green, Silvia Morgan, Lim Chung, Lani Roberson, Carmen Flores, Chuck Richardson, Sandy Scott, Trey Lancaster, Mishtia, Shymn, JZ , George Covington, and Charmaine Edwards were among many of the local artists who participated in the Art Show and who also donated artwork to Heart thru Art that was sold to raise money during the event.

The Artists Alliance of Sugar Land, The Bridge Fellowship and a dedicated, extraordinary community of Sugar Land residents volunteered to contribute to the great success of the event.

For more details and donations go to www.experiencethecenter.com//projects//heart-thru-art.•

Her program, Tomorrow’s Leaders are Today’s Readers, received a donation of more than 400 children’s books. This allowed each child participating in the event to color a bookplate to place in a complementary book of their choice.

“Children are our future and I firmly believe that literacy is important and the key to success in life, ” said Seward.

She has made many appearances speaking to elementary and preschool students as well as traveling to the state capital to speak to lawmakers about the important issue of early childhood reading skills. Her efforts are being noticed. Last year, the Houston Chronicle ran an article on her endeavors.

Seward was crowned Miss South Texas American Teen 2008 on Aug. 10 in San Antonio. She won the Photogenic and Volunteer Services awards. She competed at the National Pageant at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., during Thanksgiving week with other contestants from across the United States for thousands of dollars in cash scholarships and prizes.

Allison is the daughter of Todd and Lisa Seward. She has one brother, Cameron.•