news release

Every year, Americans eat an average of 27 pounds of bananas, with more than 96 percent of households buying them at least once a month. Every day, 1,150 bananas are consumed by the twelve chimp families living on the 150 protected acres at the Save the Chimps sanctuary, located in St. Lucie County. And while they may be some of your most interesting and least bothersome neighbors, this month, they’re also the recipients of the Dyer Difference Award in St. Lucie County. Founded in 1997 in in response to the U.S. Air Force’s announcement that it would no longer conduct research on chimpanzees, the late Dr. Carole Noon fearlessly sued the Air Force on behalf of the captive chimpanzees and gained permanent custody of twenty-one chimps. Her empathy for the chimps’ welfare became a second chance at life for more than 330 chimpanzees who will never again be forced to horrifying or cruel treatment at the hands of their evolutionary cousins. But 1,150 bananas isn’t exactly small bananas, and there are a whole lot of other expenses involved in maintaining the three-island facility, medical care, and safety of its retired inhabitants, which is why the Dyer Difference Committee in St. Lucie County chose to share a handshake or high-five, two of the common gestures we share, with the staff and residents at Save the Chimps with the June Dyer Difference Award.

In Indian River County, the Dyer Difference Award goes to The Sebastian Police Department’s Community Oriented Policing Endeavor (C.O.P.E.) Unit. The unit, which is a very special part of the department, creates and organizes events to help build and develop positive relationships with children in the Sebastian community and their families while also helping to encourage, support, and positively impact them. Instead of growing up being fearful of law enforcement officers, the program is designed to help children understand that the goal of their local police officer is to serve and protect them, to help them, and to be a positive role model and lasting influence in their lives. And while most law enforcement officers do these things quietly as they perform their daily duties, events like Sebastian’s Movies in the Park, annual Back-to-School Supply Drives for children in need and the Shop with a Cop holiday program help to create lasting relationships. Additionally, the Sebastian Police Department has an outreach trailer, which serves up snow cones and popcorn at local schools as it also promotes good behavior and academic achievement, all things worth celebrating and honoring with this month’s Dyer Difference Award.

A bonus Dyer Difference Award in Indian River County this month comes from Dyer Mazda, offering an additional award and $3,000 donation to The Vero Beach Museum of Art (VBMA), which provides Indian River and the surrounding counties with world-class exhibitions and innovative programs in art education right in our own community. Every year, more than 78,000 individuals visit the museum, and more than half of them come from school, family, summer camp, and outreach programs. Art gives us all the opportunity to experience other worlds, to express ourselves, and to view the world through others’ expressions of it, and there are not many better ways to learn how to become a more empathetic, perceptive, and well-rounded human-being than by exposure to seeing the world through the eyes of others, which is why it was important for Dyer Mazda to honor VBMA with a Dyer Difference Award for its extraordinary and continued efforts to provide those opportunities for all of us.

The Dyer Difference Award is all about celebrating the beauty and kindness in our midst. For the Dyer family and the members of the Dyer staff, the award and the typical $6,000 in donations made monthly between the St. Lucie and Indian River Counties are all about helping to make a positive difference in the community. For the recipients, it’s an acknowledgement of their tireless efforts to do the same and a much-needed financial boost to help further their missions. If you’d like to nominate a non-profit organization for the Dyer Difference Award, please visit http://www.dyerdifference.org or find Dyer Difference on Facebook.