Member News

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County has appointed new members and elected new officers to its board of directors, which guides, oversees and cultivates the organization’s strategic planning and operations.

Nelle Miller, co-founder of BizTank, will serve as chair, with Daniel DeLeo, a partner with Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, assuming the role of vice chair. Outgoing Chair Richard Gans, shareholder with Fergeson Skipper, will serve as treasurer and William M. Seider, partner with Williams Parker Harrison Dietz & Getzen, continues as secretary. Joining the board for three-year terms are Lynn Wentworth, retired financial executive currently serving as director on three public company boards, and Matthew Sauer, executive editor and general manager of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Wentworth also currently serves as a member of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County’s Investment Committee.

Continuing their duties as board member s are C.J. Fishman, Paul Hudson, Donna Koffman, Rodney Linford, Kelvin Lumpkin, Jeffrey McCurdy, Michael R. Pender, Jr., Richard Smith, Drayton Saunders, Felice Schulaner, Andrew Stultz, Marilyn Thompson, Terri Vitale and Mary Lou Winnick. 

Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s recently named Tammy Taylor its business development manager, a newly created position that will manage Neuro Challenge’s earned income opportunities, including the Parkinson’s Expo—the largest Parkinson’s educational forum in the U.S. Taylor will be responsible for maintaining existing partnerships and overseeing the development of strategic collaborations with hospitals, universities and other organizations that support Neuro Challenge’s mission of improving the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers. Over the course of her career, Taylor has held several senior management positions in the personal and business banking sectors, where she was responsible for teams of consumer and business specialists with an emphasis on business development.

Lovers of pulled pork, ribs and brisket, take note: Nancy Krohngold is opening a new Nancy’s Bar-B-Q location in Lakewood Ranch at 11 a.m. next Monday, July 1. The restaurant will be located at 14475 State Road 70 E., Lakewood Ranch, and will be open seven days a week and offer a full bar menu, a first for a Nancy’s.

The new restaurant will replace Krohngold’s existing Lakewood Ranch outpost, Li’l Nancy’s at the Ranch, a smaller version of her ever-popular downtown restaurant that opened three years ago. Li’l Nancy’s will close for a spell before reopening as Nancy’s Pantry Cold Grab & Go.

Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation (SMHF) recently awarded a total of four grants benefitting the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Emergency Care Center (ECC), Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine Residency Program, and Palliative Care Program. 

$397,000 will be used to purchase additional equipment for the ECC. The equipment will be used for patient care and resident training for physician residents entering SMH’s new Emergency Medicine Residency program starting in July. Nine medical school graduates enroll in this three-year program each year.

$144,000 raised at the Healthcare Foundation’s Women & Medicine educational luncheon last March will help support the newly created position of Chief Medical Resident at Sarasota Memorial’s Internal Medicine practice in Newtown. The chief resident will serve as junior attending physician under program director Wilhemine Wiese-Rometsch, M.D., in addition to overseeing other residents in training and helping manage daily operations.

$73,000 was awarded to help expand palliative care services at SMH and fund a new fellowship program that will begin in July 2020 with two fellows in training. An additional $45,000 will help fund palliative care nurse education beginning this fall, as well as the purchase of comfort carts to provide in-room amenities such as snacks, beverages, books and music to palliative care patients and families

SARASOTA/BRADENTON, FL – Goodwill Manasota recently received a grant of $60,000 from the Ralph S. French Charitable Foundation in support of the award-winning GoodPartner Coach program. This is the ninth year that Goodwill has received funding from the French Foundation for this purpose.

The GoodPartner Coach program offers individuals with disabilities and other barriers to employment – 84% of Goodwill’s workforce has a self-identified disability of disadvantage – with job training and case management services. The goal of the program is to enable those who may have been overlooked elsewhere to gain positive personal and workplace behaviors and skills, feel the pride of earning a paycheck and move toward self-sufficiency, build a strong work history, and develop the experience and skills to position them for higher-paying jobs outside of Goodwill.

Through Goodwill's GoodPartner Coach Program, team members participate in a career needs assessment, the development of an individualized case management plan, and then go through training components to reach ultimate desired outcomes. Job performance and educational benchmarks are set, providing clear expectations for career advancement readiness. Ideally, individuals with disabilities or other barriers to self-sufficiency will establish a lifetime link with Goodwill, so that they may take advantage of ever-increasing services available throughout the community.

“Goodwill has been innovative in hiring people from the community who may have been overlooked elsewhere and the GoodPartner Coach Program has been essential in providing these people with the tools they need to succeed in finding and retaining employment,” said Bob Rosinsky, president and CEO of Goodwill Manasota. “Everyone deserves a chance to earn a paycheck and feel the dignity of work. We are grateful to the Ralph S. French Charitable Foundation for helping us change lives in a very big way.”

For more information about the GoodPartner Coach program, call 941-355-2721 or go to experiencegoodwill.org.

Photo ID: GoodPartner Coach program manager Dana Knuuti (right) with employee Dayhana Morales

About Goodwill Manasota Goodwill Manasota is an industry-leading 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that changes lives through the power of work. With philanthropic donations and revenue generated by the sales of donated goods, Goodwill is able to assist people with disabilities, veterans, seniors, and those with other barriers to employment by providing jobs, job skills training, and free career services. For more information or for a listing of locations, visit www.experiencegoodwill.org or call 941-355-2721.

Hermione Gilpin has been appointed vice president of institutional development for Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. She will lead the gardens’ comprehensive development program and strategic direction for its annual, planned, major and capital campaigns—including its master plan—and oversight of grant-writing efforts and sponsorship activities. Gilpin recently served as a philanthropic advisor at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, she advocated for of donor engagement in arts and culture at Asolo Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.

The office of U.S. Rep Vern Buchanan has announced that the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) has been awarded $3.6 million by the Federal Aviation Authority for a drainage and water management system improvement project, noting that the announcement came after Buchanan urged acting FAA Administrator Daniel K. Elwell to approve the airport’s request for federal funding.

The funds will help improve airfield drainage and reduction in wildlife hazards. It will permit an additional 80 plus acres of taxiways, buildings/hangars, aprons, parking and access road improvements. The reduction in storm water ponds, and the deepening and steepening of the pond and side slopes will also eliminate or reduce wildlife that is currently attracted to the storm water ponds.

An update found that the existing airport water management system was essentially at capacity. In addition, most of the current system has design elements that are not consistent with the United S tates Department of Agriculture/FAA guidance on minimizing the attraction of hazardous wildlife. The proposed project will correct those deficiencies. 

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens has appointed Hermione Gilpin as Vice President for Institutional Advancement. Gilpin will lead Selby Gardens’ comprehensive development program, which includes strategic direction for the Gardens’ annual, planned, major and capital campaigns such as the Master Plan, and oversight of grant-writing efforts and sponsorship activities. Gilpin brings nearly a decade of experience in institutional advancement and recently served as a Philanthropic Advisor at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, she advocated for the importance of donor engagement in arts and culture at Asolo Repertory Theatre, where she strengthened the theatre’s endowment and annual fundraising efforts, and La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. 

Dannie Sherrill and Jenifer Schembri will join the Manatee Community Foundation board of directors on July 1.

Sherrill is the project manager for Sherrill Wealth Management, and has held philanthropic roles at The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature, Manatee Education Foundation, Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Schembri is a principal at the law firm Blalock Walters, P.A. and practices in the firm’s Bradenton and Sarasota offices. She is a former member of Manatee Community Foundation’s Lakewood Ranch Community Fund board of advisors.

Manatee Community Foundation’s new board officers are: Chair Dr. Jim Davis; Vice Chair Jeanie Kirkpatrick; Treasurer Conrad Szymanski; Secretary Howard (Sam) Seider; and immediate Past Chair Lisa Johnson. Additional board members are: James T. Bruen, Nicholas Drizos, Lillian Elliott, Michael M. Hamrick, Timothy Henning, Stewart Moon, Christopher Romine, Bob Turne r and Denise Williams. 

Board of Directors recently elected Judith Bell as Board Member Emeritus and Cyndi Miller as new board member.

Bell served as Neuro Challenge’s first Executive Director from 2012 to 2016 and guided the organization in its formative years. Bell is a nonprofit executive and consultant. Miller is the Vice-President of 1^st Source Bank; she will serve a three-year term.

Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s is dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers.