Estero High grad wins car via Project Graduation

An Estero High School alumnus is the lucky winner of a giveaway intended to keep graduates safe on their big night.

Wes Shaffer, a member of Estero’s class of 2006, is now the owner of a new Toyota Scion tc after winning a drawing Wednesday at Fort Myers Toyota.

Shaffer could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon, but Project Graduation organizer and Estero High parent Debbie Gress said Shaffer and his family were thrilled.

“He’s a very nice young man,” Gress said. “He didn’t have a car before ... the way it looks, he wasn’t going to get a car till he graduated from college.”

Shaffer, who will attend Florida State University this fall, had to go to the drawing during his lunch break from a job at Starbucks, Gress said, and even went back to work after the paperwork was finished.

Nearly every high school in Lee County has a Project Graduation event, paid entirely by community donations and intended to celebrate graduates at a safe, all-night party. A drawing was held at all 11 events to send one teen to Fort Myers Toyota to win a new car, and the other 10 at Wednesday’s ceremony also left with gifts such as a television, a bicycle or a computer.

Estero held its event at the Bonita Springs YMCA on May 15. There, every student who attended went home with a door prize, Gress said. Shaffer won an emergency car kit.