11 minute read
The Local
7
billion
How many hot dogs Americans eat each summer
650
million+
How many longdistance summer trips are made in the U.S.
1,085 How many women were in the longest bikini parade
Don’t-Miss Event
THE BOCA BACCHANAL, benefiting the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum, is baaaaaccckk! Rescheduled for May 6-7 at The Boca Raton, this culinary event will have its elegant vintner dinners May 6 at select private homes and venues around Boca Raton, and the popular Grand Tasting on May 7 at The Boca Raton. Details were still being refined at press time, so visit bocabacchanal.com or email offices@bocahistory.org for more information.
Scenes from the Bacchanal’s Grand Tasting
Locals sound off on issues affecting our community.
What’s on your bucket list for this summer?
“To go hiking with my family in the Rocky Mountains at the YMCA of the Rockies. Hotel rooms, cabins, hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking... This YMCA was there— all 900-plus acres—before Roosevelt declared the Rockies a National Park.”
—Jackie Reeves, Managing Director, Bell Rock Capital, LLC
“My oldest daughter is applying to colleges right now. My bucket list for the spring/summer is fast filling up with college campus tours and visits. It is an exciting time for her, and I am enjoying the travel also.”
—Greg Reynolds, V.P., Senior Personal Investment Portfolio Manager, Northern Trust
AARON BRISTOL 22 bocamag.com • • • • May/June 2022
“If the past two years have taught me anything, it’s that having fun with family and friends is at the top of that list! I also want to take some time to exhale after a busy season, while planning my wedding and honeymoon.”
—Heather Vidulich, Vice President, Slatkow & Husak Public Relations
Sun Time
Here are a few must-have picks for summer this year, from sunnies to suits to a hat or two. And you cannot have too many hats…
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5 3
1. VALENTINO GARAVANI, crochet fedora, $950; 2. GUCCI sunglasses, $625; 3. ANDREA IYAMAH bikini top, $105, bottom, $105; 4. ZIMMERMANN linen shorts, $425; 5. TOD'S sandals, $795; 6. DR.LARA SPF 47 Sun Shield, $95; 7. RAMY BROOK romper, $275; 8. LELE SADOUGHI headband, $195; 9. MOSCHINO Ice Cream shoulder bag, $895 all available at saksfifthavenue.com
A FEW SUMMER DINING PICKS
PRIME CATCH, 700 E. Woolbright Road, Boynton Beach, 561/737-8822. This is summer dining at its best—from a sleek outdoor bar or a terrace smack-dab in and on the Intracoastal. The seafood here is divine and varied—and so is watching the bridge go up and down for megayachts passing by.
SEASPRAY INLET GRILL (at The Waterstone), 999 E. Camino Real, Boca Raton, 561/226-3022. It feels like vacation here, pure and simple, on this outdoor patio with its bright umbrellas perched on Lake Boca Raton by the Camino bridge. The all-day menu has the prefect grouper sandwich and blackened mahi tacos.
OLD KEY LIME HOUSE, 300 E. Ocean Ave., Lantana, 561/582-1889. This old charmer goes on forever, with all kinds of waterfront seating (including right on the dock) and views from every rambling room. It’s legendary for Gator games in the fall, but we love it all Veggie stack from Prime Catch summer long for fish sandwiches, bloodies, and a looooong view of the Lake Worth Lagoon.
THE NAUTI DAWG MARINA CAFÉ, 2841 Mariner Circle, Lighthouse Point, 954/941-0246. This bright little cafe on the Lighthouse Marina comes with a side of clinking masts, seabirds and live music— and the occasional Yappy Hour, of course. A fresh and fun menu ranges from edamame to chicken wings and conch fritters.
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THINGS ABOUT SUMMER WE LOVE
Afternoon monsoons
The end of the season of whirlwind events (and they were back this year!)
The ocean is warm enough for locals
Mount Gay and tonic
When the weatherman is more important than Lester Holt
Matinees on hot Sundays
Dinner reservations before 9 p.m.
Road trips to all the places that were too crowded this winter
Island time in the Bahamas
Spotting sea turtle tracks on your beach walk
JUST SO YOU KNOW…
• In the U.S., cherry is the No. 1 flavor in Popsicles.
• Studies show that men are more likely to cheat during the summer months.
WHEN: May 6-22 WHERE: Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami COST: $60
CONTACT:
305/949-6722, arshtcenter.org
“Be careful what you wish for” isn’t just a platitude. It’s also a cautionary tale for ironic dabblers into the occult. That’s the premise of “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” a play from Miami native Alexis Scheer. Four teenage girls, part of a self-contained group they call the Dead Leaders Club, congregate in a mystical Miami treehouse circa 2008, attempting to summon a deceased head of state in each meeting. But this time, in which they call on the spirit of Pablo Escobar, their revelry takes a turn, and so does Scheer’s play—from a comic romp through the female millennial mind to a chilling piece of horror theatre that’s full of surprises. Stuart Meltzer and Elena Maria Garcia direct the play’s Florida premiere, courtesy of Zoetic Stage.
TEARS FOR FEARS WITH GARBAGE
WHEN: June 9, 7:30 p.m. WHERE: iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansburys Way, West Palm Beach COST: $53-$305 CONTACT: 561/795-8883, westpalmbeachamphitheatre.com Tears For Fears didn’t need to produce a comeback album. Once the most titanic band in England, and the most enduring exemplars of the “second British invasion” of 1980s new wave, Curt Smith and Ronald Orzobal’s synth-pop giants could have filled stadiums solely as a legacy act. Their hits—“Shout,” “Head Over Heels,” “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”—are tailor-made for amphitheaters: As enormous as caverns, and just as easy to get lost inside. But this pioneering duo, despite creative friction that permeated even this latest recording session, has gifted us with a new album, The Tipping Point, its first release in 17 years. It brims with hooks, wisdom, insights and reflections on everything from deaths in the family to political unrest, finding its writers grappling with a new “Mad World.”
Tears for Fears
“FLORI-DUH”
WHEN: May 14-15, 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Sunday WHERE: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach COST: $38-$45 CONTACT: 561/832-7469, kravis.org We all had quarantine projects during that Bermuda Triangle vacuum between March 2020 and the summer of 2021. In March 2021, Canadian comics Mike Delamont and Morgan Cranny filled their downtime by starting a podcast called “Florida-Duh,” recounting the week’s absurdist and site-specific Sunshine State headlines, like this gem from the Keys: “House Squatter Answers Door Naked, Wrestles With Deputies.” Or the case of the doorbell-licking deliveryman, or the zonked-out senior who drove his golf cart through the aisles of a Tampa Walmart. Florida continues to be a gift for all comedians, Canuck or otherwise, and even though Delamont and Cranny ended their podcast after 10 episodes, they’ve continued to collect stories, and they can’t wait to share them here, in the belly of the beast.
“Chromosaturation”
BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ: “CHROMOSATURATION”
WHEN: Opens June 9 WHERE: Perez Art Museum, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami COST: $12-$16 museum admission CONTACT: 305/375-3000, pamm.org Few artists loved color—or experimented with its inherent properties—as much as Venezuela’s Carlos Cruz-Diez. In his vivid installations, many of them seminal in the 1960s Op Art and kinetic art movements, he sought to shape color as “a reality which acts on the human being with the same intensity as cold, heat, sound and so on,” he said, in 1975. His public works are seen everyone from a Parisian railway platform to Caracas’ international airport to here in Miami: He designed the optically adventurous walkway leading to the entrance of Marlins Park. “Chromosaturation,” conceived in 1965, is a signature Cruz-Diez work: an immersive environment in which viewers enter three chambers, each lit with a single saturated hue (red, green and blue). The goal is to scramble our retinas and allow us to feel color as a bodily phenomenon.
—Jeff Stoops
Behind the Philanthropy
Getting to know two of Palm Beach’s most generous givers, Jeff and Aggie Stoops
Written by TYLER CHILDRESS
The smell of fresh paint and new drywall still emanates from the halls of the Stoops Family Foundation Residential Cottage in West Palm. Built in April 2021 as the residential wing of the HomeSafe Sylvester Family Foundation West Campus and dedicated to Jeff and Aggie Stoops after their $5 million donation to HomeSafe last year, the 9,984-square-foot cottage has become a home to girls who have suffered severe emotional and physical trauma while also serving as the genesis for something grander.
Seeing the profound effect this new facility had on the 12 teenage girls living there inspired the HomeSafe leadership to launch the $15 million Healing the Hurt campaign to transform and expand their other facilities across Palm Beach County. During the March 1 announcement of the campaign, HomeSafe revealed renderings and floor plans for the new Boca Grand Cottage, which will provide private bedrooms and bathrooms as well as therapeutic services for 12 in-need Boca children.
The state-of-the-art Boca Cottage owes its influence to the West Palm cottage that bears the Stoops’ name. Twelve private bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, line the two halls of the building, which join at an open area containing a rec room, complete with board games and a PlayStation, and a fully stocked kitchen. For the 12 teenage girls living there, the residential cottage is a safe space for them to live and learn the life skills necessary to have happy and productive lives. But for Jeff and Aggie Stoops, this building that bears their name is a way to spread the good fortune they have encountered in their lives.
“The older we get, the more we see that there are so many less lucky, less fortunate in the world, and we just want to share what we have and help those folks out,” says Jeff.
Such a large donation certainly makes the Stoops a stop on a tour of the philanthropic scene in Palm Beach, but the Sunshine State was not always their home. Jeff Stoops spent the first 20 years of his life in the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware, and attended the University of Delaware before transferring to Florida State University where he met his college sweetheart, Aggie, who had also transferred to FSU from her home on Long Island.
The two met in the co-ed dorms for transfer students but didn’t start dating until Jeff was starting law school at FSU and Aggie was finishing up her undergraduate studies in social work with an emphasis on child welfare.
“For me it’s always been child welfare issues,” says Aggie. “I just had a passion for children in need.” The service bug bit Aggie early on in life, she says, with her parents volunteering at church functions and for Meals on Wheels. Aggie went on to volunteer at group homes when she was 19, and worked with women who had suffered from domestic violence.
After completing their studies, the two married, moved to Wellington and reared four children. Jeff worked as an attorney for the Gunster law firm, and stayed there for 13 years until he joined SBA Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, in 1997. Within two years he became CFO and took the company public. In 2002, he became the CEO.
In 2013, the couple formed the Stoops Family Foundation to better channel and organize their philanthropic efforts, which at the time included funding professorships at FSU and developing their relationship with HomeSafe, where Aggie now serves as vice president. As a mother, the mission of HomeSafe resonates intimately with her.
“To be able to raise healthy and happy children, I feel very blessed, and I really feel for children and families that are hurting and don’t have that stability,” says Aggie.
As for what’s next for the Stoops, their Foundation is helping to develop a new adult center they funded for the Els Foundation, a nonprofit focused on serving individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
“We look for underserved populations, and that is definitely an underserved population in Palm Beach County,” says Aggie.
Jeff and Aggie Stoops
