Holiday Greeting Card Contest Winners Announced

Thursday afternoon, Mayor Michael Pavia and Interim Superintendent Dr. Winnie Hamilton honored the winners and runners up in the seventeenth annual holiday greeting card contest.

“I’m always asked, “What is the hardest part of being the mayor of Stamford?” — well, I think the hardest part of the job is picking out the Christmas card!” Pavia laughed. "We laid them all out, and we couldn't decide."

This year, the contest drew over 100 submissions from students in the Stamford Public Schools. Both Pavia and Hamilton chose a card that will be sent out from their respective office and each also selected two runners up to recognize at a reception.

The Mayor’s Runners Up were seniors Tara Kijek and Danielle Caliboso, both students of art teacher Elizabeth Moncure.

“I gave it to them as a homework assignment and we talked briefly about the requirements,” Moncure said. “They’re all really hard workers.”

Another of Moncure’s students, Westhill senior Katelyn Conte, was chosen as one of Dr. Hamilton’s runners up. Cindy Luo, a sixth grader at and the only middle schooler in the bunch, was also chosen as one of Dr. Hamilton’s runners up.

“I think everyone can recognize this, it’s an old fashioned holiday card,” Hamilton said. “It’s just adorable.”

Hamilton selected senior Mireya Moreno as her winner.

“I asked her if she’d ever won a contest before and she said no — I told her, you have now, and you’ll win more!” Hamilton said.

Moreno’s card depicts a figure with outstretched arms looking into a wintery scene, but the photograph didn’t start out that way.

“I think it was taken in Cove and was a shot of the beach,” Moreno explained. “I took out the background and added in the trees and the snow.”

Veronica Colacurcio, a senior at Stamford High School was chosen as the Mayor’s Winner for her card depicting the Stamford skyline inside of a snow globe.

“I was thinking about the card and I found a snow globe with New York City at my house and I thought, why not put Stamford in a snow globe,” Colacurcio said.

“Veronica has always loved art,” Georgia Colacurcio, Veronica’s mother, said. “She worked on it at home and we had suggestions of what landmarks to put in the snow globe. She remembered the tree on top of the Landmark Building.”

As the reception drew to a close, proud family members took photos, browsed the other submissions, and the winners’ families took home piles of newly-printed cards to share with family and friends.

The students' card designs will be on display at the through the holiday season.