The ACR La Barqueta awards more than a hundred schoolchildren in the 22nd School Drawing and Painting Competition about "El Hallazgo"

Benidorm City Hall Assembly Hall hosted one more year the twenty-second edition of the Drawing and Painting Contest organized by the Cultural and Recreational Association "La Barqueta." The competition is aimed at primary school students and is organized annually with the support of the Departments of Culture and Education to commemorate the anniversary of the Discovery of the Virgin of Suffrage, patron saint of Benidorm.

With the hall full, 110 children received prizes in the different categories, who received gifts provided by the City Hall and the various organizations collaborating with this event.

The event was attended by Mayor Toni Pérez and the councilors from the departments involved in the contest, Jaime Jesús Pérez and Maite Moreno, and other members of the Municipal Corporation. The queens of the 2024 Festes Majors Patronals, Paula Pascual Sánchez and Aitana Pérez Gutiérrez, and the president of the ACR La Barqueta, Francisco Llorens, also attended.

1,746 drawings were submitted by schoolchildren from most of the city's educational centers in this 22nd competition, of which 305 were selected and exhibited at the Diego Cano Enguera Fester House.

The mayor opened the event with a brief address to those in attendance, emphasizing that this is "a well-established competition," while also taking the opportunity to "congratulate everyone who participated" and thank La Barqueta for its work. He also noted that this weekend marks the commemoration of the discovery of Benidorm's patron saint 285 years ago "with very important events" and encouraged everyone to "accompany the Virgin on Saturday at the offering or on Sunday at the Alba procession."

CEIP Bautista Lledó, Costa Blanca International College, and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores were awarded €300 in cash by the City Council for being the Benidorm schools that submitted the most drawings to participate in the competition. They were presented with the prizes by the director of La Barqueta, Batiste Rostoll. The Mayor, Toni Pérez; the Councilor for Culture, Jaime Jesús Pérez; and the Councilor for Education, Maite Moreno, were next to present the remaining awards.

Regarding the prizes, the jury of the 22nd La Barqueta Drawing and Painting Competition determined that the first prize in the first cycle of Primary Education went to Mateo de Hoces García, from Nuestra Señora de los Dolores School. Second prize went to Chloe Sellés Leonte, and third prize to María Vázquez Gómez, both also from the same school as the winner. In this cycle, the students Miguel Vázquez Gómez (Nª Sª de los Dolores), Bella Bencoscaia (Miguel Hernández), Shihua Lin (Nª Sª de los Dolores), and María Casagrande Sola (Nª Sª de los Dolores) also received runner-up honors.

In the second cycle of Primary Education, the winning student was Rocío Parra Tarancón, from Lope de Vega International School. Second place went to Martín Fuentes Amor (Nª Sª de los Dolores), and third place to Sara García van Hoocten (Nª Sª de los Dolores). The four runners-up were awarded to Kenia Navarro Calderón (Our Lady of Sorrows), Emma Castiblanque (Lope de Vega), Víctor Miguel Ramos (Our Lady of Sorrows), and Leonor Vázquez Romero (Our Lady of Sorrows).
Finally, in the third cycle, Cris Navarro Casillas, from CEIP La Cala, won first prize, ahead of Ylia Khivrych, from Miguel Hernández, and Edurne Sánchez de Pablo, from Ausias March School. The runners-up were Elvira Repepskaiz (Lope de Vega), Coco Ruike Zhao (Our Lady of Sorrows), Ainhara Pérez Guillén (Our Lady of Sorrows), and Sara Martínez Blanco (Costa Blanca International College).

Finally, the ACR La Barqueta also awarded 11 prizes to the Special Education students who participated in this year's competition. It was also decided that the work submitted by Catalina Malan Vione, a third-year primary school student at Leonor Canalejas School, will illustrate the poster announcing this competition in its 23rd edition, which will be held in 2026.