While most activities sponsored by the Weehawken Recreation department this summer have been based around athletic competitions or physical fun (like the pie-eating contest and games), there were also some contests that enabled township youngsters to show off their creative and imaginative sides.
Most recently, the Recreation Department held a puzzle contest, where contestants had to put together a 100-piece puzzle as fast as possible, within a 25-minute limit. This contest turned out to be very popular and a great way to beat the heat.
As it turned out, the best puzzle makers in Weehawken happened to be a brother-sister team. Eleven-year-old Cesar Albujar won the 10-12 age group, while his 9-year-old sister, Naysha Tanaquiche, was the best in the 8-10 age bracket.
"We’ve gone up against each other and I’ve won," Albujar said about making puzzles with his sister. "But we’re both pretty good and we both won, so that made us happy."
Albujar said that he has always been an avid puzzle fan, so that gave him an upper hand on the rest of the field.
"I’ve always like doing puzzles, since I was little," Albujar said. "This puzzle was sort of hard, but I had fun with it and was able to finish it."
And he was the lone competitor in his age bracket to totally complete the puzzle.
"It’s pretty wild that both me and my sister won," Albujar said.
A different competition, a model-making contest, enabled youngsters to take models of cars and give them their own artistic flair and touch. Sam Silver, who will enter his sophomore year at Weehawken High School, won the contest with his entry, "Never Ending Road," taking the completed car and adding scenery, like palm trees and road signs, that he created out of clay.
"My son just loves to build," said Yvonne Silver, Sam’s mother. "He loves to create, so this contest was right down his alley. He came up with the ideas himself and just went off on his own and did it. He went and bought the clay himself for the scenery. I was quite impressed with what he did, even if he is my son."
The final creative contest was the photo contest, which contestants were asked to find locations throughout the town, photograph the spot and enter the photos.
"The photos were amazing," said Donna Daly, the recreation supervisor who helped organize the creative contests. "They really took their time with the pictures, cropping them, enlarging them. Some had their pictures matted and framed. They were all very ingenious and definitely got creative with their pictures."
The winner of the photo contest was Caitlyn Lentini, who took an incredible picture of the street sign at the corner of Fulton Street and Boulevard East.
"You might not think a street sign is special, but the way the sign was shown through the trees, with the clouds in the sky, was really amazing," Daly said. "It was a beautiful picture. We were all impressed with the photo contest entries. They all had clever ideas."
Daly said that all three contests were set up to encourage creativity within the youngsters.
"These contests are fairly new, so we were concerned whether we’d get a turnout," Daly said. "But we got a good turnout for each contest. I think we appeal to the non-athletic kids, the ones who don’t usually win in the other contests. It gives those kids an alternative, because there are some kids who aren’t generally athletic."
Although Sam Silver is a member of the Weehawken High School soccer team, his mother believes that the contests definitely help those who are creative as well.
"I like having things that encourage their creative side," Yvonne Silver said. "It really is great that they have these contests for kids. My daughter [Ali] saw how much fun Sam had that she’s already planning to enter next year."
Daly was impressed with the way all the children performed all summer.
"A lot of them were so imaginative at a very young age," Daly said. "I was very impressed. They were very serious and concentrated on what they did and took a lot of pride in what they did."
Puzzle contest winners
Ages 6-9
First Place – Naysha Tanaquiche
Second Place – Heather Danchise
Third Place – Prabhjit Kaur
Ages 10-12
First Place – Cesar Albujar
Second Place – Rominder Singh
Third Place – Gilberto Lopez
Model making winners
Ages 6-10
First Place – "Muscle Man" by Rominder Singh
Second Place – "My Hometown" by Seth Morris
Third Place – "UPS Delivery" by Laura Nieto
Ages 11-14
First Place – "Never Ending Road" by Sam Silver
Second Place – "9-11" by Jack Nieto
Third Place – "Charger" by Luis Best
Photo contest winners
First Place – Caitlyn Lentini
Second Place – Lori Reeves
Third Place – Perry Brody