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MAY 2021 941.312.0665 | 27TH STATE MEDIA, LLC RACQUET CLUB NEWS LRC PRESIDENT’S REPORT
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RESIDENTS HELP CLEAN UP SARASOTA BAY
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GETTING TO KNOW ARTISTS “FROM” THE LANDINGS
Allison Shaira, former resident, sharing her gift of song
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TEEN SCENE
A Generous Combination: Blanco Grandchildren & Starbucks A Landings Holiday Charitable Foundation Story By Karl Maggard One doesn’t usually associate grandkids and coffee with one another. But in this case, there is a strong relationship: generosity! The three children in the photograph (Isa, Alex and Anna) are the grandchildren of Landings/Eagles Point residents, Carol and Paul Blanco. They were visiting Sarasota from New York with their parents, Fiona and James Blanco. They stopped in to visit the Blanco’s friends and our neighbors, Marian and Walter Kristlibas in Eagles Point. I received a call from Marian saying they would like to do-nate to the Landings Holiday Charitable Foundation (LHCF) and help support the chil-dren who are battling cancer. Many Landings residents are aware of this charity and our efforts over the past six years to help children who have cancer. We also support three other charities which aim to help abused and grieving children and families. In 2020, the LHCF bought holi-day gifts for over 150 kids and their siblings. The need for support increases each year and, due to the generosity of Landings residents and retailers, we have been able to continue to satisfy the demand. We were delightfully surprised when the Blanco children arrived with $82.00 in cash to donate to the LHCF. I would like to think that the first thoughts that all young people who have an extra $82 would have is to donate it to charity. But, that’s what the terrific Blanco kids did. We are so grateful to these generous and thoughtful children and their parents and grandparents. Talk about raising children well! Starbucks has become a significant partner in
Left to right: Isa, Alex and Anna Blanco
Karen White (left) assistant manager at Starbucks with Karl Maggard (right).
supporting the Landings Holiday Charitable Foundation, along with Publix, Apollonia Grill, Rooms to Go, Wells Fargo and other Landings businesses. In 2020, our Landings Starbucks ‘adopted’ 12 chil-dren for whom they were able to obtain holiday gifts. Starbucks shift supervisor, Karen White (shown in photo), is a hard working individual who believes strongly in our Landings’ charity efforts. For our 2021 campaign, which officially kicks off this fall, she is engaging other Starbucks locations in the area and has committed to gift donations from Starbucks customers for 50 children! Since most chil-
dren get 5-6 presents from LHCF, that means Starbucks customers will generate approximately 250-300 gifts and toys for our kids. In order to make the program work smoothly, Karen makes individual “tags” iden-tifying each gift and child. In turn, Starbucks customers buy that gift for that particular child. We are so grateful to the Blanco children, Karen White, Starbucks, their customers, and all of our other supporters as we look forward to our fall kickoff and an-other successful year helping our kids! See, grandchildren and coffee are alike in this case: very generous!
Getting to Know the Artists at The Landings
Anne Snape Parsons: Creating Beautiful Images With a Timeless Feel By Marie-Louise McHugh
Grace McCarthy, 15
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WHAT AM I?
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WHAT’S NEW IN THE AREA
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Who knew how important patios, driveways and gazebos wo u ld b e c o m e du r i n g t h e Covid-19 Pandemic, that lead to meeting so many new and wonderful neighbors. Several weeks ago, I was invited to an informal lunch at the Eagles Point gazebo by friends who wa nted me to meet An ne Parsons, a photographer from t h e O ut e r B a n k s o f No r t h C a rol i n a who h ad r e ce nt ly moved to an Eagles Point home with her husband James. Ju s t b e f o r e t h e m e e t i n g I checked her website (annesnape.com) and was very i mpressed by her st u n n i ng photog raph s t hat tell ma ny stories. She photographs women posing in front of intriguing backgrounds and in costumes. I was interested by the way she not on ly por t rayed her photographic subjects literally but a l so w it h sy mb ol s t h at tell who they really are. Anne i n for me d me t h at sh e wa s getting ready to travel back to the Outer Banks, where she and her husband still have a home, for the opening of a show of her photographs at the Dare Arts Gallery. An ne Snape Parsons g rew up i n Scotla nd. As a young
woman she excelled at ballroom da nc i ng. O n a wh i m, she e nt e r e d a “M i s s S c o t l a nd” Beauty Pageant and ended up being invited to Los Angeles to represent Scotland in “The Miss International 1965”competition. This was her first trip abroad. She fell in love with California and decided to stay. In Scotland she had worked in banking, and through connections she made at the beauty pageant, she got a job at a HSBC bank. This job enabled her to receive a green card and shortly afterward she met her first husband . They moved to New York and later to Washington D.C. She and her first husband eventually d ivor ce d a nd she r e t u r ne d to school, ea r n i ng Ma ster ’s Degrees in English Comparative Literature and French. Then, she met and married James Parsons who was a developer of large real estate projects in, among other places, the Washington D.C. area. Anne became interested in photography a little more than si x yea rs ago. Her son wa s getting married and needed a photographer for the event. She accepted the assignment and immediately fell in love with Continued on page 18
Ellen Westermann
Anne Parsons’ Cook Book about children in the kitchen
One of the “Important Women of the Past”