Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Sarasota once again showed its philanthropic spirit from April 9-10 during the 2024 Giving Challenge.
Hosted by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County in conjunction with The Patterson Foundation, the biennial Giving Challenge provides funding to more than 700 nonprofit organizations across Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.
It also offered matches on all unique donations between $25 and $100, provided by The Patterson Foundation.
The Observer spoke with a few of the smaller nonprofits that gained high numbers of donations and donors to learn what plans they have for the funds and how the funds will help benefit the community.
Solis Hall, Wellen Park’s beautiful rental venue, is alive with the sound of live music, wedding vows, milestone celebrations and a variety of summertime workshops, lectures, and classes.
Nestled along Wellen Park’s 80-acre Grand Lake and surrounded by live oaks in the heart of Downtown Wellen, Solis Hall’s one-of-a-kind, blank canvas setting provides the perfect backdrop for wedding ceremonies, receptions, cocktail parties, corporate events and more.
Featuring stunning all-white sun-filled interiors with floor-to-ceiling windows and a large front porch that doubles as a stage overlooking Downtown Wellen’s Great Lawn, Solis Hall accommodates up to 110 guests for seated dinners or 150 guests for cocktail receptions or theater-style presentations.
Patios and the adjacent Canopy Green, an intimate outdoor destination under a heritage live oak, can be bundled with hall rentals, providing additional space for guest lists up to 250 people.
For even larger events, the Downtown Wellen Venue Collective offers the Hammock Lawn, which can accommodate large tents and over 1,000 guests. Solis Hall offers full-day and half-day rentals from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
All celebrations include menu planning with the venue’s exclusive caterer, the adjacent The Banyan House restaurant, plus banquet tables and chairs.
By 1988, Sarasota was fully immersed in its identity as a city of the arts. So its leaders at the time decided to adopt a silhouette of the famous — some might say infamous — bronze replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David, which stands in the courtyard of The Ringling Museum of Art, as central to the city logo.
With David peering over their shoulders on April 15, as he always does during City Commission meetings from behind the dais, current leadership debated whether he should remain as the iconic symbol of the city, or be replaced by something more contemporary.
After contracting Sarasota-based branding and marketing firm DreamLarge to guide the city through a new city seal design process in 2022, it went in-house to create a new logo, tasking Marketing and Outreach Coordinator — and graphic artist — Ciera Coleman, for the work.
Her assignment was threefold: refresh David, modernize David, and something else entirely.
The April 15 meeting was the first opportunity for commissioners to officially discuss the project with Coleman. They first saw a range of concepts from all three options during a Feb. 12 informal workshop, when they offered suggestions for refinements. At both the workshop and the most recent meeting, they clearly leaned toward “something else,” a geometric acronym for City of Sarasota, the letters COS evoking the city’s role in contemporary architecture, eschewing centuries-old art.
But they also weren’t ready to dump David just yet.
“David is unique to Sarasota,” Vice Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch said. “It’s the only one that exists in the hemisphere to have that exact size and material, so it is a unique piece of art.”
Mayor Liz Alpert, though, is clearly opposed to David as the city’s ongoing identity, going so far as to say she never wants to see it in any future designs.
Nobody needed La Chic Bohème more than its owner, Holly Sharpe.
The new Waterside Place business is billed as "a luxury spa and style house that includes a spa retreat with four luxury treatment rooms, a med spa, salt room, infrared sauna, permanent makeup room, lash lounge, and wet room with vichy rain shower."
But Sharpe promises that her dream spa is much more.
She said it is a space that people can go when life gets too fast, and there is a need for emotional well-being.
Sharpe's emotions were running amok after she signed a lease at Waterside Place in Lakewood Ranch in February 2023. At the time, she was running a spa at a much smaller space in Sarasota, and when she signed with a contractor, he promised he would perform her interior build quickly.
With that guarantee, she signed a contact since he wanted to keep her current staff from her Sarasota business, which she closed, and simply move them over.
When your artwork will serve as a permanent fixture of the city, finding the right section of sidewalk is a must.
At first, Sarasota artist Maggie Davenport had her sights set on the east side of South Pineapple Avenue, but after she noticed a certain painting on the other side, she changed her mind.
She thought the patterned sun she had submitted as her design would complement the historical painting below it depicting two Calusa natives in the outdoors.
“As a visual artist, you're always taking in composition,” she said. “Well, how does that piece work with this piece? And how might they speak to each other?"
Davenport calls the juxtaposition of the artwork a storybook experience for the community, but if that description is apt, it is a story that has not been fully painted yet.
The Avenue of Art, which was created by the Sarasota Chalk Festival, entered its third phase in early April, will see the addition of 100 paintings to the previous 210 by the end of the month.
Artists from around the community, and the world, have contributed to the project and continue to do so.
The Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key raised $102,150 for the Children’s Guardian Fund from Longboat's most anticipated event of the year, The Lawn Party.
At the Kiwanis Club's bimonthly meeting on April 18, Lawn Party Event Chair Michael Garey and President Chris Sachs presented the total impact of the annual event on Dec. 2, 2023. Eight-hundred guests attended the event to enjoy the endless food and drink options from local top-tier restaurants, raffles with coveted prizes, and to raise money for the Children’s Guardian Fund.
Garey said that this year the funds raised were just short of last year’s record due to the absence of the silent auction. He thanked his committee, including his Lawn Party “MVP volunteer” Bill Totten, the sponsors, the attendees and everyone in Kiwanis for all the hard work this year.
The total proceeds from the event were $80,000 with the help of multiple sponsors and attendees. The Kiwanis Club brought its donation to $102,150 with multiple matches it received from community partners. The Doris M. Carter Family Foundation provided a match of $15,000 once the total proceeds from raffle tickets hit $20,000. The Louis and Gloria Flanzer Philanthropic Trust provided a $1,850 match. The Michael Sanders Community Foundation donated $750. The individual donations from Lawn Party attendees and supporters of the cause brought in an extra $4,550.
Many dancers spend so much time training and trying to land a job with a company that they rarely think about their second act. What will they do when their bodies grow older or injured and can no longer perform?
At Sarasota Contemporary Dance, Artistic Director Leymis Bolaños Wilmott is thinking about that for them.
Each of the dancers has a job in the company besides performing. Monessa Salley is the production lead, handling lighting and running the In-Studio Series of performances in the company’s studio at 1400 Boulevard of the Arts. Juliana Cristina is responsible for development and marketing. MaKayla Lane is the company’s administrative assistant. Those are just a few examples of the dual roles that SCD team members hold.
The pay structure at the nonprofit dance company is also unusual. “We don’t have a Christmas tree pay structure where the person at the top makes all the money,” says Bolaños Wilmott. “Everybody gets paid the same.”
In case you’re wondering what that number is, SCD is advertising on Indeed for a part-time general manager to work 30 hours a week. The pay is $17.50 an hour.
Like other dance companies, SCD brings in revenue by selling tickets to performances like its upcoming show, “Voices: Rising Choreographers” May 2-5 at FSU Center for the Performing Arts. The company also teaches different types of dance to children and adults in the community.
SCD’s summer intensive series is the pipeline for recruiting new members and artistic works for its company from outside Sarasota. The “Voices” show at FSU showcases the work of choreographers from the SCD 2023 Summer Intensive Series selected by Bolaños Wilmott.
-----------------------------------------------
*If You Go
"Voices: Sarasota Contemporary Dance Rising Choreographers." May 2-5. Jane B. Cook Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $20-$55. Visit: https://SarasotaContemporaryDance.org.
A condominium in Vizcaya at Longboat Key tops all transactions in this week’s real estate. Reel Funding Inc. sold the Unit 1A1 condominium at 2333 Gulf of Mexico Drive to Kevin Theroux and Christine Carol Theroux, of Lone Tree, Colorado, for $4,999,000. Built in 1997, it has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, a pool and 3,349 square feet of living area. It sold for $3.3 million in 2007.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday capped three days of environmental events beginning on Earth Day by signing legislation that puts $200 million into a program to help Floridians protect their homes against tropical storms and hurricanes.
The My Safe Florida Home program provides up to $10,000 in state grants to match whatever homeowners are paying to harden their homes against storms, with low-income residents eligible for state help even without matching dollars.
The program, so far, has been overrun with applicants. But the $200 million set aside under the measure (SB 7028) should help ease the backlog, DeSantis said before signing the bill in the Pinellas County town of Redington Shores.
“We do realize that there’s a waiting list,” DeSantis said. “And I think it’s good they re-upped the program. If there was nobody signing up for it then they (the Legislature) probably wouldn’t have appropriated more money for grants. So there’s more help on the way.”
DeSantis called the program “effective.”
The signing Wednesday came after DeSantis earlier this week touted his support for $1.5 billion in the state budget for Everglades restoration and water quality and later enacted legislation aimed at developing new technologies to ease red tide, which has plagued Florida’s Gulf Coast.
In the appearances, DeSantis has been promoting his six-year record of pouring billions of taxpayer dollars toward environmental efforts mostly focusing on repairs and resiliency in the face of climate change, which the Republican governor avoids mentioning directly.
“These are meaningful things to get on the scoreboard,” DeSantis said of the latest round of actions.
The My Safe Florida Home program originally launched in 2006, but the Republican-controlled Legislature stopped funding it about three years later, allowing it to become dormant. It was revived with state funding during a 2022 legislative special session on the state’s property insurance crisis, as Floridians began complaining about paying the nation’s highest homeowner costs.
Being included in the program can help with insurance, since it provides home inspections, hurricane readiness and recommendations for wind protection features, including roofing materials, better exterior and garage doors and storm shutters.
DeSantis also signed into law a measure (HB 1029) that expands My Safe Florida Home to include a condominium pilot program. It would provide licensed inspectors to perform inspections and grants to eligible associations, as funding allows.
The governor said the state budget for 2024-25 that he is expected to sign soon includes $30 million for this condo program.
‘There’s a lot of people on the waiting list’: DeSantis signs bill to give $200M boost to My Safe Florida Home program
Joe and Deborah Fabrizio always wanted to live on the water.
Their dream came true six years ago when they bought a waterfront home in St. Petersburg.
But their beautiful view comes at a cost, because as any true Floridian knows, a hurricane can change your life in a matter of hours.
So in November, Fabrizio had his home inspected through the My Safe Florida Home Program.
“We had an inspector come out and inspect the home,” he said. “We went through the whole process and figured out what we can apply for through the Safe Home Program,” he said. “But by the time I had gotten the inspection paperwork done, they had run out of money. There was nothing left to do.”
The program ran out of funding. Floridians like Fabrizio have been at a standstill ever since.
Fortunately, for them, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law Wednesday that allocates $200 million to get the program back up and running.
“The program is over subscribed,” Gov. DeSantis told reporters in Pinellas County. “There is a lot of demand.”
“There’s a lot of people on the waiting list,” he continued. “So this $200 million will go towards clearing the folks on the waiting list and any additional demand.”
DeSantis claims the program will help lower insurance rates.
We took that to HH Insurance President Jake Holehouse to find out if that’s what he’s seeing in the Tampa Bay area.
“For many homeowners, it can reduce that hurricane portion of their premium in some cases up to 88%, but on average we see 50 to 70% of that,” he explained. “In a coastal county like Pinellas, Hillsborough, Sarasota, any of our Tampa Bay counties, the hurricane portion of premium is typically about 2/3 to 3/4 of the overall premium rate.”
“So when you’re talking about reducing 2/3 of that by over 50%, it can have a massive impact on a Tampa Bay policyholder,” he continued.
But will 200 million dollars be enough to keep up with demand?
“I wish they did more,” Holehouse explained. “When you think about a state the size of Florida, $200 million doesn’t go very far because there’s so many coastally impacted homes where this makes a huge difference.”
All Phase Roofing Services owner Rick Studley said he’s seen the impact first-hand.
“I see a lot of damage,” he said. “I’ve been in the construction industry since 1987.”
“I’ve seen Hurricane Andrew, I’ve seen Hurricane Ian, there’s a lot of storms that just traumatize places,” he continued. “It just becomes a disaster zone.”
That’s what pushed Studley to become a part of the program.
“When they came up with the program, I thought to myself, man that would be a great way for us to help our community be able to be prepared for storm seasons and be able to protect one of their most prized possessions that they own, their home,” he said.
Studley said, he’s seen the money make a difference.
“As we all know, materials in the construction industry, they keep going up and we don’t foresee that ever coming down,” he explained. “So it’s made a big impact on all of our clients who have been approved for the grant.”
“There’s two grants, so the low income rant, the state of Florida pays us directly,” Studley continued. “That’s $10,000 the homeowners done have to come up with out of pocket.”
“It’s quite a bit, especially for people who just don’t have the money for it and need it,” he explained. “The other is the matching grant, where the homeowner pays the full amount and then the state reimburses them up to $15,000, which is also great.”
“That’s money they have to front, but the state reimburses them,” he added. “Once they reimburse them, that’s $15,000 you don’t have to spend.”
With the new legislation signed into law Wednesday, there are changes coming to the program.
You can read the new law in it’s entirety below (PDF):
Sarasota County is preparing to launch two more Resilient SRQ programs.
Resilient SRQ is the name of the county's overall program for distributing $201.5 million in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds from the federal government.
The plan approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development includes programs for housing, infrastructure and economic revitalization.
Scored applications for infrastructure projects will be presented in May, Steve Hyatt, of the Office of Financial Management, told the County Commission on Tuesday. Applications are being accepted through May 1 for affordable housing proposals, he added.
Windows will open in late May to apply for funds for homeowners and career training, he said.
The county has allocated $55 million for the housing program — $40 million for rehabilitation and reconstruction and $15 million for reimbursement for work already completed.
Under HUD criteria, the funds must benefit homeowners at or below 80% of area median income whose primary residence in Sarasota County was damaged by Hurricane Ian, he said.
The county has a program implementation manager that will hire subcontractors to perform approved work.
HUD criteria will also apply to the choice of materials and appliances that can be used, and even the color of paint, Hyatt said.
"These are some high-level criteria," he said.
Resilient SRQ Program Manager Laurel Varnell followed Hyatt to get the Commission's approval of scoring criteria for the career training program, which has $15 million to spend.
"The intention is to create a career trades training program in the construction fields," she said.
Money will be available for nonprofits, public entities and institutions of higher learning proposing to provide public services or to acquire land and construct a public facility, she said.
They, too, will need to be able to show they're serving low-to-medium income participants in Sarasota County.
In addition, projects must include a mitigation component. HUD's only exception to the requirement that CDBG-DR funds be spent on recovery from Hurricane Ian is expenditures for mitigation.
Staff's proposed scoring criteria would award up to 20 points for an applicant's financial plan, leveraging of funding, readiness, impact and ability to comply with applicable regulations.
Commission Chair Mike Moran proposed some tweaks, including eliminating the leveraging of funding as a criterion and dividing those 20 points among the other four.
The Commission unanimously approved the revised criteria. Varnell said applications will be accepted for six weeks.
Moran said he's "thrilled" the training program is moving forward.
"Everything else, if you ask me, feels like we're giving away a fish," he said. "This is the part where we're teaching somebody to fish."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
