LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — The heat didn't stop Lake Worth Beach residents from coming out to celebrate in a unique way — cheering on the Great American Raft Race.
"It warms my heart," Mayor Betty Resch said of Tuesday's turnout. "It just proves that Lake Worth Beach is an amazing, wonderful, unique place to live. I mean look at this. We've got people from all over the town competing with good nature and having fun even though it's 115 degrees today."
Each year on the Fourth of July, teams representing each of the city's neighborhoods test their engineering skills and creativity with a friendly hand-crafted raft race competition and golf cart-decorating contest. This year's theme was "intergalactic invasion."
"It's all about tradition in Lake Worth and this is how we start the Fourth," Ramsay Macleod said. "Neighborhood raft race is all about bringing the diversity of our city together and celebrating once again what America is all about."
There were several winners in a variety of categories, but the College Park neighborhood team came home with the raft race trophy this year.
"Win or lose, what makes this so much fun is that Lake Worth Beach is a place where we can all get together, regardless of our differences, and celebrate Independence Day with each other," resident Julie Seaver said.
The race was just part of a day's worth of festivities going on throughout the city for Independence Day.
