It was a race against the clock — 48 hours to dip 5,000 strawberries in chocolate. Four employees at Peterbrooke Chocolatier started dipping the berries in dark, milk and white chocolate at 4 a.m. Tuesday until they reached their goal of 5,000 today — Valentine’s Day.

Fueling a vehicle or buying a gallon of milk were challenges for the first generation of Avalon Park residents. A decade later, residents have a whole host of amenities at their fingertips, but there are new challenges facing our quickly expanding community. Clogged roadways, crowded schools and a lack of public recreation areas are all real issues that need to be addressed. At this milestone in Avalon Park’s history, I optimistically believe East Orlando’s glass is half full, with plenty of accomplishments to look back on, and more to come.

It started with a dream and a booked room. About 50 University of Central Florida students met weekly for a year to engage local decision-makers with students and citizens in discussions about climate change. The result: UCF is one of more than 1,000 academic institutions that joined together for Focus the Nation. “There was no grand plan.

The sign out in front of the Town Center at Timber Springs, presenting to potential customers a first impression of the new plaza on Avalon Park Boulevard, is in pieces and disrepair. In October, four stores in the shopping center were broken into on the same night, with offenders forcing their way through the back doors of the businesses, ransacking the cash registers.

Heart health is not a one size fits all proposition. Whether you are short and fat, long and lean, or somewhere in between, you may have health complications of which you are not aware. In 2006 nearly 2,000 Orange County residents died from cardiovascular disease.

At 1:30 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, Stephen Acosta was working on the computer out of his Waterford Chase home when he saw two teenagers dart across his front lawn. He watched closely as they ran up to his neighbor’s house, crouched down, put on ski masks, and used a hammer to break the side window. He immediately called police, who arrived about five minutes later.

While residential and commercial developers across Central Florida struggle to fill empty space, available spots in Waterford Lakes are filling up fast. The reason, according to commercial consultant David Marks of Maitland’s Marketplace Advisors, is their proximity to Waterford Lakes Town Center. “The Waterford Lakes area is tremendously successful for commercial space because it is home to a regional shopping destination,” he said.

One East Orlando pastor saw hope, even in Hell’s Hole. Many say the Kawangware slum of Nairobi, Kenya, is one of the most dangerous places on the African continent. Called Hell’s Hole, it is a case study of human tragedy. There is a 70 percent unemployment rate, with an equal percentage of drug users or alcoholics.

Angela Fernandez’s bags are packed to move into her new apartment on Goldenrod Road. The 26-year-old single mother of three shacked up with her mother for the last two years, squeezing her family and all of their belongings into the three-bedroom Clermont house. She happened to check out the housing scene in East Orlando just as Marbella Point and Marbella Cove became available — Orlando’s newest affordable housing complex.