Daily Record FINANCIAL NEWS &
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2017
Vol. 104, No. 064 • oNe SectioN
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Learning center for the children
Ronald McDonald House renovation to be completed next month As challenging as it is for a sick child to undergo life-saving medical treatment in a city away from home, it’s an added disruption for the patient and siblings to stay current on school work and remain involved in learning. Ronald McDonald House Jacksonville intends to help ease that burden in a third-phase renovation project expected to be completed by the end of March. The first two phases expanded the building.
“We are going to create a space that is rich in learning opportunities for children,” said Executive Director Diane Boyle. The nonprofit serves more than 1,200 families a year who stay there as their children are treated at area medical facilities. Ronald McDonald House Charities of Jacksonville has been expanding the Southbank facility and the final phase comprises renovations that include the learning center.
Boyle said the center will encourage patients and their siblings to explore the art, science, math and other materials and activities. The center — a space for informal and experiential learning —
will include iPads, computers, educational toys and games. “It will help to formalize a space for them where children can go on a daily basis,” Boyle said. The center will help children and their siblings who miss school, are home-schooled or study with tutors. School is interrupted by illness and sometimes young students stay at the house several times a year during treatment.
How two Mary Lees led Ocearch to Florida
Creating a place for artists
Shark collaborative partnering with JU By Marilyn Young Editor
Mixon Studios transforming neighborhood In many cases, economic development requires vision and determination combined with a workable plan and some sort of financial incentive from the city. Sometimes, it just needs some air conditioning. The latter is the case for Jeff Edelson, founder of Mixon Studios. An artist who had outgrown his space in the CoRK arts district in Riverside, he started looking for a similar set-up where he could construct his assemblages of wood and metal artifacts. When he saw a soon-to-be abandoned chemical processing facility for sale, he knew he had found his new studio. In 2015, Edelson purchased the former Excel Chemical Co. in Mixon Town, a neighborhood between Interstates 10 and 95 and West Beaver Street, an area designated by the city as economically distressed. After about a year of cleaning up the property, removing the remnants of the chemical factory and building out studio spaces in a 5,000-square-foot utility building, Edelson moved in and was soon followed by painters, textile artists and a knife-maker. He has since purchased two adjoining vacant lots along McCoy’s Creek that are being transformed
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“Pinch” by Dave Hind is in the sculpture garden at Mixon Studios.
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Special to the Daily Record
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
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Boyle said the facility is partnering with the University of North Florida College of Education and Human Services for the center as well as its volunteers. UNF will provide volunteer tutors and mentors for the children, said Michelle McCormick, marketing and events manager with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Jacksonville. In addition, a fitness center is being built next door, separated MATHIS CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Chris Fischer was first pointed to Jacksonville in January 2013 by a girl named Mary Lee, whom he met that previous fall. Fischer’s Ocearch team had tagged the shark four months earlier off Cape Cod, Mass., and tracked her as she headed south to Florida. “She knew before we did,” he said Thursday, as he talked about Ocearch’s new partnership with Jacksonville University. “She’s like, ‘I’m trying to show you the way, man.” The university is now home to what Fischer described as “the largest shark collaborative in the world.” Ocearch studies marine sciences and shares its data, partly to engage students and inspire future generations. It will collaborate with JU’s Marine Science Research Institute. As he was welcomed to the university on Thursday, Fischer talked about another Mary Lee who helped lead him to Jacksonville. His mother, after whom he named the shark, and his father, George, raised him and siblings to believe anything was possible. Fischer “When people oftentimes said things were impossible, all that did was provide us a vista from which to see further than we could before so we would continue to reach,” he said. Growing up in Louisville, Ky., Fischer first fell in love with the water through recreational fishing. Each year, his parents took the family to Florida for vacation, which fostered Fischer’s passion for the ocean. As a young man, he was inspired by Jacques Cousteau, the famed researcher who helped people understand how important the ocean was for the future. “When we lost Cousteau, the ocean lost a great, great asset,” Fischer said. He studied entrepreneurship at Indiana
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