BRADENTON – Lorenzo Liberti, a 16-year-old sophomore from Lakewood Ranch High School, just donated $30,000 for homeless veterans in the Turning Points Yellow Ribbon Veterans Program on Dec 22nd at a check presentation at Turning Points. In attendance to honor Lorenzo and his amazing donation were Florida State Senator Jim Boyd and Manatee County Commissioner, Vanessa Baugh.
Lorenzo started his journey of giving back when he met a homeless Vietnam Veteran 2 years ago while serving food with his mom, who is a healthcare worker, at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church. Lorenzo was moved from his story and made a commitment to help homeless veterans like him that day. Lorenzo created Heroic Flags and started handcrafting wooden American Flags to sell and to give the proceeds to charities that helped homeless veterans. That is how his relationship started last year with Turning Points. Lorenzo donated two flags for the Turning Points annual dinner and those flags raised over $2600 in the silent auction.
This past summer, Lorenzo created a GoFundMe page to raise $50,000 so that he could create a wooden handcrafted flag for a hospital in every state to honor the frontline healthcare workers to honor the work that his mom does. Part of the proceeds would go to supply and pay for that project but the other proceeds would be donated to Turning Points. His story was featured locally and nationally on different media outlets. Lorenzo was recently named the “Kid Hero” from GoFundMe for the month of December and has so far raised over $34,000.
Lorenzo wanted to gift the $30,000 for homeless veterans before Christmas, so even though he has not made his overall goal yet, he presented the gift to Turning Points on Dec 22nd. “This gift will allow us to impact veterans in an extraordinary way,” says Edwin Robinson, Veterans Program Manager, “We are extremely grateful for Lorenzo and this gift”.
Turning Points assisted over 500 families either sustain safe and stable housing or ended homelessness for those families just in this past year. This included over 100 veterans and their families.
To learn more about Lorenzo’s GoFundMe – https://www.gofundme.com/f/heoric-flags-for-frontline-healthcare-workers
Kid Hero of the month – https://www.gofundme.com/c/heroes/lorenzo-liberti
