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 Tuesday.
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 Angels Catholic Church. Lorenzo was moved from his story and made a commitment to help homeless veterans like him that day.
He 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 $2,600 in the silent auction.
This past summer, Lorenzo created a GoFundMe page to raise money to 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.
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 of $50,000 yet, he presented the gift to Turning Points on Dec 22.
“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”.
In attendance to honor Lorenzo and his amazing donation were Florida State Senator Jim Boyd and Manatee County Commissioner, Vanessa Baugh.
