The 1500 block of State Street in downtown Sarasota was transformed into a philanthropic celebration on Thursday, March 16th. Better Together, Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s outdoor, fun event brought donors, nonprofit partners, and community members of all ages together to celebrate collaboration, community, and connection.

The event featured free activities celebrating education, arts, health and human services, and the environment. Among many local partners who hosted a booth was local artist Brandon Thrift, known for his “Spread Love” artwork. Thrift invited visitors to collaborate on a piece of community artwork by decorating individualized hearts inspired by the work of renowned artist, Romero Britto, who uses vibrant colors and bold patterns as a visual expression of hope, dreams, and happiness. “This event was an automatic yes for me,” says Thrift. “I’m a huge fan of Romero’s work and I’m so happy to be sharing his inspiration in such a meaningful way today.”

Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s Strategic Engagement Manager Kelly Borgia hopes that this Better Together event is the first of what will hopefully be many more like it. “It’s an opportunity to celebrate the collaboration and amazing things we can do when we work together,” she says. 

Pictured: Brandon Thrift and GCCF volunteers encouraged visitors to spread love at the Better Together event. Photo by Wyatt Kostygan.

Halfacre Construction Company, a Lakewood Ranch-based commercial construction company, recently sponsored Lightshare Behavioral Wellness and Recovery dba First Step of Sarasota’s Caring Hearts event with a $2,500 sponsorship. Held last month, the annual event encourages the community to come together and support those in need most and celebrates the victory of 700 infants born drug-free. First Step’s Mothers and Infants Program empowers and treats pregnant and post-partum mothers who are facing substance abuse addiction. The sold-out event kicked off with a welcome message from Patrick Robinson, Board Chair of Lighshare Behavioral Wellness and Recovery and deputy city manager, and Shawny Robey, president and chief executive officer. The event continued with community partner remarks, guest speakers, a client success story and concluded with an awards ceremony. For more than 50 years, Lightshare as First Step of Sarasota has been caring for the community by providing affordable, evidence-based behavioral healthcare services to children, adolescents, adults, seniors and their families who struggle with mental-health and substance-use issues. The commercial construction company is proud to support the community through giving, fundraising, donating building projects and serving on a number of organizational advisory boards, including the Special Olympics, Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota County, Central Command Memorial Foundation, Suncoast Charities for Children and more.  

All Star Children’s Foundation has welcomed a new member to its board of directors: Byron Shinn. Shinn is a partner with Carr, Riggs & Ingram CPAs and Advisors, a nationally acclaimed accounting and advisory firm. He brings 42 years of public accounting experience to the All Star team. 

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Rise & Nye’s, the little downtown Sarasota coffee and ice cream shop with a big mission, is hosting its second Big Beignet Eating Championship on April 1st at 11:00am sharp! Show everyone “what cha got” by eating as many beignets as you can in 3 minutes. Two age divisions. A $20 entry fee (supports our nonprofit, Inclusion Revolution) gives contestants the opportunity to win an array of spectacular prizes along with the pride of being named Sarasota’s Beignet Eating Champ. Sign up. Be a winner. Support the amazing team members at Rise & Nye’s. 

Forty Carrots Family Center’s Generations of Change expansion campaign reaches a milestone as it breaks ground on a new building for Mental Health and Parenting Education services. Since 2020, Forty Carrots has increased child and family mental health services over 70%, and the expansion will allow for a 100% increase in Mental Health and 30% in Parenting Education services over the next several years. The Generations of Change expansion includes a new 6900 sq ft building on 1.72 acres at 1350 Cattlemen Rd. It offers a Child and Family Therapy Center with 6 therapy rooms, intake office, waiting area and Parenting Education Center equipped with flexible capacity with moveable wall and observation capabilities, virtual program rooms, administrative offices, and program staff workspaces. The addition of the Cattlemen campus allows for the expansion of early education services and administrative offices in the existing buildings on S. Tuttle Avenue. The Visionary Circle along with a group of dedicated Forty Carrots donors together have committed $7.5 million toward the $10 million campaign goal to encompass increase in services, financial sustainability, and the building.   

Pictured: Forty Carrots Campus Expansion Rendering Cattlemen Road. Photo courtesy of Forty Carrots.

Following a long and successful career, All Faiths Food Bank CEO Sandra Frank announced today that she plans to retire by the end of 2023. In her 11 years at All Faiths, Frank has led the organization to boldly rethink and re-envision the food bank to ensure that ending hunger extends beyond the traditional “food in – food out” model and targets underlying causes to end hunger before it begins. Working alongside the Board of Directors and senior leadership team, she launched a new mission and rebranding of the organization in 2018. In partnership with visionary funders, she helped create the foundation for All Faiths’ exemplary fundraising program, including the Campaign Against Summer Hunger, which provides food to students and their siblings during the summer months when schools are closed. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Campaign, which has raised over $14 million and feeds more than 35,000 children every summer. She has directed All Faiths with intense focus and determination throughout a global pandemic, devastating hurricanes, and record levels of need. [See below for further achievements.] Frank’s leadership has earned All Faiths Food Bank national and local recognition as a pioneer and model in the program areas of hunger and health, evaluation, and rural hunger. The organization’s executive committee has begun the process of interviewing executive search firms to recruit qualified and experienced candidates; the search committee will be headed by former food bank chair, Benjamin Hanan. Frank will remain CEO through the recruitment process and transition, and will consult as needed. Hanan expects to announce the hiring of the recruitment firm and the launch of a national search within the next month. While Frank has been considering retirement since 2020, a triple-header of crises – the pandemic, the resulting economic impacts, and Hurricane Ian – caused her to pause her plans. In late 2022, with strong professional and volunteer leadership in place and the organization’s new strategic plan being implemented, she decided it was time to begin preparing for her next chapter. To learn more about All Faiths Food Bank, visit allfaithsfoodbank.org or call 941-379-6333. 

Making An Impact. Inc. (MAI), a local nonprofit and leading curator of basic needs community resource information in Sarasota and Manatee counties, recently received several grant awards supporting its Community Connections Resource Guide. The grants, totaling $10,858, support providing information on basic need services at public libraries serving Parrish, underserved residents in Newtown, and needy Manatee County families with school-aged children whose primary or preferred communication language is Spanish.The grants come from various sources, including the Conrad & Ruth Ann Szymanski Fund of the Manatee Community Foundation, the Dallas and Elizabeth Dort Charitable Legacy Fund of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, the New Genesis Fund of the Manatee Community Foundation, and The Parrish Foundation. These grantors were impressed by Making An Impact’s commitment to the community and its innovative approach to addressing the informational gap in finding local essential services. Now in its third year, the organization already has nearly 5000 printed basic needs Community Connections Resource Guides in circulation, and thousands view the information online. Last year, in response to Hurricane Ian, MAI created a printed and online Disaster Recovery Guide used by area residents, Emergency Management, and FEMA. For more information about Making An Impact or to view their online Guides, visit their website at www.Making-An-Impact.org. 

Sarasota Opera will work to strengthen its entrepreneurial capacity and increase its mission impact with earned-income strategies developed and implemented through its participation in Margin & Mission Ignition, an opportunity presented by The Patterson Foundation. As one of four regional organizations selected for Margin & Mission Ignition, Sarasota Opera will work with No Margin, No Mission, a social enterprise and national consulting firm engaged by The Patterson Foundation, over a 30-month process. No Margin, No Mission will work with each nonprofit to develop and implement business plans to generate revenue and support their efforts in the community. Throughout the process, the organizations participating in Margin & Mission Ignition will come together to learn from and share with one another based on their experiences. Margin & Mission Ignition is part of The Patterson Foundation’s Nonprofit Thrivability initiative. This initiative connects nonprofits with expertise and resources to learn concepts like strategic decision-making while adopting and implementing entrepreneurial principles to generate enough revenue to support and eventually grow their operations. For more information about Margin & Mission Ignition, please visit thepattersonfoundation.org. Join the conversation on social media by using #TPFMarginMission.For more information about Sarasota Opera, please visit SarasotaOpera.org. 

Making An Impact. Inc. (MAI), a local nonprofit and leading curator of community resource information for Sarasota and Manatee counties, recently partnered with The School District of Manatee County. Through this collaboration, printed copies of MAI’s Community Connections Resource Guide, a comprehensive directory of local resources, will now be available in Spanish and English to help families locate essential services so their children can focus on learning. The guide features over 300 listings of services and programs available in Sarasota and Manatee counties, including children’s programs, employment, food assistance, healthcare, housing, and more. By providing the guide in Spanish, MAI hopes to bridge the communication gap that may otherwise make it more difficult for Spanish-speaking families to find available helping resources. MAI’s Community Connections Resource Guide is accessible to the general public online at Making-An-Impact.org where it can be viewed in any of 20 languages. Printed copies of the Spanish version of the Guide are currently limited to those produced for the Manatee County School District. Making An Impact is actively seeking sponsors and donations to enable additional production and broader distribution of the Spanish version of the Community Resource Guide as soon as possible. In just three years, Making An Impact’s Community Connections Resource Guide has more than 5000 copies in circulation, and thousands view the guide online. Their guide has quickly become one of the area's most trusted and widely used references for where to go to get help. In addition to Manatee School District, guide users include most of the areas social service nonprofits, law enforcement agencies, and faith-based institutions. 

Gulf Coast Community Foundation is delighted to announce that applications for their highly anticipated 2023 Gulf Coast Leadership Institute are now open. Gulf Coast Leadership Institute is designed to identify and develop aspiring, emerging, and experienced leaders who reflect the diversity of our region. For the 2023 class, up to 25 people will be selected to participate in a program of leadership development sessions over a two-month period. Applications will close on Monday, April 10 and are available at www.GulfCoastCF.org/GCLI. Led by faculty of the internationally acclaimed Leadership Development Institute at Eckerd College, the institute will provide leadership skills and resources necessary to positively impact the community. “Gulf Coast Leadership Institute is an exciting opportunity for our region’s current and future leaders to harness their leadership skills,” said Kelly Carlstein, Vice President of Brand Strategy for Gulf Coast Community Foundation. “This high quality leadership development training provides participants with a chance to positively impact the community and take their leadership to the next level.” Gulf Coast Community Foundation encourages people to apply for the unique Gulf Coast Leadership Institute which trains and connects aspiring, emerging, and experienced community leaders across the Gulf Coast region. For more information, please visit www.GulfCoastCF.org/GCLI.