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Last month, the Education Foundation of Sarasota County named five new members to its 14-member board of directors, including new Board Chair Kara Saunders. Joining Saunders, who has been on the board since 2019, are newcomers Claudia Cardillo, Tom Cunningham, Vin Foderingham, Teacher Representative Tim Ferguson and Student Representative Mason Thien.

“I’ve been serving on the board for six years,” says Saunders. “I was introduced to the organization through a friend who’d heard me talk about my passion for education and how I feel that it’s life changing for our students. I had coffee with our president, Jennifer Vigne and two other board members, and I was sold at that moment on the organization’s mission to create an opportunity for every student to feel successful.”

Saunders, who is a mother of three and a working professional outside of the Education Foundation—she was previously the Director of Communications for the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation and is currently a Health and Wellness coach in the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System—will help lead the non-profit that is dedicated to serving nearly 44,000 students and over 5,000 instructional staff and personnel in 59 public schools across Sarasota County. The Education Foundation includes an internal affairs committee, an external affairs committee, governance and an executive committee. As Board Chair, Saunders’ role is to make sure all of the different sectors of the non-profit work together cohesively, from managing fiscal responsibility in the internal affairs committee to extending the organization’s reach throughout the community with the external affairs committee and more.

“There is no other mission more important than preparing students and children for life. As adults we have this opportunity to put resources in front of them that can help them understand who they are, what their interests are, what their purpose is and how they can become a positive, contributing member of society,” says Saunders. “The Education Foundation cares about the whole student—there’s this concept in education of caring for the whole child, but a lot of the work we do is with young adults who may be at risk of not graduating high school.”

Moving into the 2025-26 school year, Saunders wants to increase awareness in the community of the Education Foundation’s impact. “Oftentimes our impact can be more felt than seen, so we want to ensure that we have a renewed focus on our programming,” says Saunders.

Education Foundation of Sarasota County, 1960 Landings Blvd #120, Sarasota, 34231

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