Pets We Love Best in Show Winner Mini Mart, the 12-year-old quarterhorse, with owner Melissa Wightman, photography by Wes Roberts. On the cover:
Pets We Love Best in Show Winner Lido, the 9-month-old red cavapoo belonging to Elyse and Mac Schmitz pictured
Wes Roberts.
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Whether we need a motivating meow or a well-wishing woof, our pets are constant companions, bringing joy, loyalty and unconditional love into our everyday lives. Each year, SRQ Magazine’s Pets We Love competition invites readers to share the stories and snapshots that celebrate these special bonds. The result is a heartfelt collection of lovable personalities, touching moments and everyday adventures that remind us just how much our pets mean to us. Now, we’re delighted to introduce this year’s “Best in Show” honorees, a group of cherished companions whose stories capture the spirit of this beloved community tradition. COMPETITION PRODUCED BY SRQ MAGAZINE, LAUREN SUTTER | PHOTOGRAPHY BY WES ROBERTS | COPY COMPILED BY EDEN SHAMES
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paradise 86
Each year, thousands of new residents are drawn to our region—for good reason. Often referred to as paradise, it offers a quality of life that’s hard to beat. But as the population grows, so does the pressure on our land. Open spaces once used for agriculture, conservation and wildlife are increasingly being replaced by residential and commercial development. The responsibility for protecting our natural environment falls to all of us, not solely to elected officials. That’s why these local organizations and community leaders are working together to protect our land and water, preserving what makes it a special place for both people and nature. WRITTEN BY BARBIE HEIT | PHOTOGRAPHY BY WYATT KOSTYGAN
at the New Pass Grill, photography by
53 GUIDE TO COLLEGES LAKE ERIE COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA RINGLING COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
OF
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Kayla Fisher’s mobile café, The Houston Run Hitch, brings coffee and western charm to Pinecraft. Step into spring at Bouquet Bar, a special pop-up experience inside Wink Wink Food & Drink. Longboat Key Club Golf Instructor, Stephen Arnold, has raised more than $100,000 for First 1,000 Days Suncoast by completing over 100 holes of golf in a single day. Art Center Sarasota celebrates 100-year milestone. A public art installation at Michael Saunders & Company’s downtown headquarters chronicles Sarasota’s artistic legacy. Dogs Inc introduces AI-powered workshop for guide dog alumni.
Plastic Surgeon Marguerite Barnett blends wellness and medical care at her local private practice. Paul Hoback, Jr., aims to stick the landing as the new President and CEO of SRQ Airport. Former earth science professor Dr. Matthew Wielicki came to Sarasota for a lecture on how climate data influences design decisions and building regulations. Idina Menzel performed for the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation Gala.
new2srq 34
Chelsea Freeland is learning about her new home city through her position at Architecture Sarasota.
culture city 64
The rolling world premiere of Lady Disdain at Asolo Rep gives us the chance to get to know one of the most prolific playwrights of the
21st century. Legendary soprano Renée Fleming brought her talents to Sarasota. Adam O’Farrill and Britton Smith had never met until a shared program at The Hermitage Artist Retreat.
forage 77
C.W. Prime at the St. Regis Longboat Key is a masterclass in high-end dining. Yugen brings Sarasota its first kaiseki restaurant. Janie’s Amman serves mezze and shawarma rooted in centuries of Spice Route flavor.
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Michael Suarez has come full circle with Children First.
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Sarasota doctors say disrupted sleep can have serious health consequences,
This page, clockwise: Interview with Paul Hoback, Jr., President and CEO of SRQ Airport, photography by Wyatt Kostygan; Dogs Inc. introduces AI-powered workshop for guide dog alumni, image courtesy of Dogs Inc.; Bouquet Bar at Wink Wink Food & Drink, photography by Wes Roberts.
MAY/JUNE 2026
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ORIGINS OF “SRQ”
The “SRQ” in SRQ magazine originates from the designated call letters for the local Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. “SR” was the original abbreviation for the airport before the growth in total number of airports required the use of a three-letter code. Letters like “X” and “Q” were used as filler, thus the original “SR” was revised to “SRQ,” much as the Los Angeles airport became “LAX.” As a regional publication committed to the residents of and visitors to both Sarasota and Manatee counties, SRQ captures the place that we call home.
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Manufactured, sometimes referred to as mobile homes or trailers, are factory-built, single-family dwellings constructed on a permanent steel chassis and installed on-site, typically within planned communities where residents either lease or own their land. Evolving from early 20thcentury travel trailers into federally regulated housing after 1974, these communities represent one of the most significant yet often overlooked housing innovations in the United States. They have long provided affordable, attainable pathways to homeownership for retirees, seasonal residents and working families, while fostering strong social networks and distinctive neighborhood identities despite persistent stigma.Modern Dwelling: Manufactured Housing Communities of Sarasota, Florida, a year-long study by Architecture Sarasota and the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, documents and evaluates approximately 60 communities across the county. The project situates these neighborhoods within broader patterns of migration and postwar growth and identifies 10 communities that may be potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Established in 1949 on a former Army Air Base, Venice Municipal Mobile Home Park is a rare publicly owned community that provides affordable housing in a residential setting near the Gulf of Mexico, anchored by a repurposed military building serving as a community center. Illustration by John Pirman | Written by Morris [Marty] Hylton III, President, Architecture Sarasota
STORIES ABOUT THE LOCAL PEOPLE, PLACES AND EXPERIENCES THAT DEFINE OUR HOMETOWN
THE LITTLE TRAILER THAT COULD
Below: The Houston Run Hitch serves up goodies like the acai breeze bowl.
Kayla Fisher’s mobile café brings coffee and western charm to Pinecraft. Sarah Emily Miano
Below: Customers gather outside the trailer in Pinecraft; owner Kayla Fisher creates speciality drinks such as the berries & dream matcha with strawberry milk. The Houston Run Hitch, Mon-Thurs, 7am-7pm, Fri-Sat 7am-10pm, 1108 Kaufman Ave, Sarasota, thehoustonrunhitch.com
KAYLA FISHER’S FIRST MEMORIES OF SARASOTA ARE SAND DOLLAR HUNTING WITH HER DAD ON SIESTA KEY and biking the Pinecraft neighborhood, where her grandparents once lived. Year by year, the sand collected in her shoes. So when Fisher moved her mobile coffee trailer south from Pennsylvania last October, she didn’t agonize over the destination. The Houston Run Hitch draws an eclectic bunch of locals and tourists, equally at home. Fisher will attest that it’s unfolded just as she imagined—only better. The stylish trailer, a green hand-drawn horse galloping across its side, occupies a gravel lot in—yes—Pinecraft, surrounded by modest homes, string lights stretching to a wide oak. Busy afternoons fill pastel café tables with fitness regulars snapping pitaya bowls, young parents wrangling smoothies and strollers and Amish community members perusing matcha options. “My vision was to be somewhere like this,” says Fisher, now twenty-five. “Sarasota is such an upand-coming area that I knew it was going to take off.” This entrepreneurial mindset began in Gap, Pennsylvania, at the Fisher family’s westernthemed cafe, The Houston, where she worked as a barista and learned the business from her parents, Steve and Ruth. In 2024, the Houston-Run Hitch launched as its mobile extension, until the youngest Fisher branched out. Now it’s “a family affair”: her parents co-own from up north, handling business and legal, while Fisher focuses on her passion. “I get to have fun and brainstorm and come up with pretty little drinks,” she says. Those drinks carry family fingerprints: the brown sugar bronco latte featuring her dad’s tapped New York maple syrup, the salty stallion her mom’s caramel sauce. Meanwhile, older sister Veronica runs Instagram. Fisher’s right about pretty. The menu dazzles in vivid color, from a Strawberry Pop-Tart latte topped with rainbow sprinkles to blue spirulina bowls heaped with bananas, coconut and granola. Smoothies are swirled: Lido lagoon blueberry blue; coco loco mango yellow. Berry bliss riffs on the Haley Bieber drink craze, with optional wellness boosters like collagen and hyaluronic acid. Fisher prioritizes fresh, locally sourced—and cute. With seven employees and hiring underway, the operation shows no signs of slowing. “Some days we feel like we’re bursting at the seams in our little pink trailer,” Fisher admits. Expansion looms: a pop-up cart for events and markets, possibly a second trailer or brick-and-mortar. The goal, she’s clear, is to “put roots down and grow those connections with people who will be here year-round—that means everything.” The local Amish community accounts for nearly 15% of customers. “It’s been cool to open their eyes to new things,” Fisher says. Beyond Pinecraft, social media comprises the Hitch’s bread-n-butter, drawing visitors via TikTok or Insta who “come because they saw a video on their For You page.” Proof is in the proliferation of selfies and merch sales. “We’ve been blown away by how much support is around us,” Fisher says. “It’s an honor to be here. I can’t wait to serve a lot more coffee.” SRQ
Below: Stephen and Chelsea Arnold used both of their professions to arrange The Longest Day of Golf at Longboat Key Club. To learn more, visit First1000DaysSuncoast.org.
GOLFING FOR THE FIRST 1,000 DAYS
One Hundred Holes for One Thousand Days. Barbie Heit
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A LONGBOAT KEY CLUB GOLF INSTRUCTOR TEAMS UP WITH HIS WIFE, THE INITIATIVE DIRECTOR AT FIRST 1000 DAYS SUNCOAST, TO GIVE BACK?
A total of $114,000 is raised to strengthen care coordination, support families and improve maternal and infant health across Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Stephen Arnold is a golf instructor at Longboat Key Club and the Director of Instruction at Red Sky Golf Club in Vail, Colorado. As an eight-time PGA Teacher of the Year for the Southwest Chapter, he has taught hundreds of golfers across the United States. His wife, Chelsea Arnold, is the director of First 1,000 Days Suncoast, a nonprofit organization that helps families during pregnancy and their child’s first 1,000 days of life, when 80 percent of brain development occurs. In an effort to raise awareness for First 1,000 Days, Stephen played the Longest Day of Golf at Longboat Key Club on December 4, with a goal of completing 100 holes in one day. Known for his involvement in golf-related charitable events, he was hoping to find a unique way to support the organization. He initially considered asking Longboat Key Club members and clients for donations. “I thought, how can I match the contributions that I'm asking for?” he recalls. “I needed to figure out what I could do on my end if I was going to ask everybody to donate and be generous— what would be hard, painful and challenging?” This led to the idea of playing 100 holes of golf in a single day. “It was a fun idea because it allowed me to get members involved and out on the course,” he shares. The biggest challenge of the event, he discovered, turned out to be the timing. "We did it on December 4, very close to the shortest day of the year," he explained. “If I did it in June or July when I've got 16 or 17 hours of daylight, it's not that stressful—I could take a break for lunch and it wouldn't be a problem.” However, with only 11 hours of daylight, the pressure was on to play nine holes every hour from sunrise to sunset. This requirement made the endeavor physically grueling. Although a cart helped prevent him from walking all 100 holes, Stephen admitted, “my hands hurt and my body was tired.” Thanks to the incredible generosity of clients, friends and family, Stephen successfully raised $57,000. With a matching contribution from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, the total amount reached $114,000. As Chelsea notes, this total represents a fifth of the organization's annual operating needs. As the initiative's director and its first employee since 2019, she has witnessed the profound difference made in the lives of countless families. SRQ
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Thank you to our readers who cast over 360,000 votes in SRQ Magazine’s Best of SRQ Local Readers Competition. Together, we recognize, support and celebrate our locally-owned businesses, experiences and people. Sharing the Live Local. Love Local. story.
We invite you to start planning for next year!
2027 NOMINATIONS PACKAGES, EARLY SPACE CLOSING FRIDAY, JUNE 12
Art Center Sarasota is celebrating 100 years with its 2025–2026 season— a milestone for which the organization is incredibly proud and grateful. Barbie Heit
IN CELEBRATION OF CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITY, Art Center Sarasota is honoring three extraordinary artists—Susan McLeod, Clifford McDonald and Gail Eisenfeld-Hansen—as Centennial Honorees. Each exemplifies the Center’s commitment to building meaningful connections between artists and audiences. During the Beaux Arts Ball on March 21, an evening of “art, elegance and imagination,” each honoree was invited to feature one piece as part of the Centennial celebration.
SUSAN MCLEOD IS A LIFELONG ARTS ADVOCATE who ran galleries during the rise of the American studio glass movement and played a key role in Sarasota’s Season of Sculpture. A passionate champion for preserving and sharing the city’s visual arts history, she continues to connect artists and audiences alike. Along with her galleries here in town, McLeod also had a presence in Washington, DC and worked with Michael Saunders for over 30 years. As a real estate agent, she came to learn that most people came to Sarasota for the arts and the cultural community it offered. “There was a time in the 80s and 90s that Sarasota had very well-known, popular galleries on St. Armands Circle, which is where mine was and people came here specifically to shop for art,” she recalls. “We still have wonderful galleries today, but we don't have what we had back then. This town gave birth to a lot of talent and one of the most important things that came out of this 2026 celebration is that a lot of those past artists were honored.” Having been involved with the Sarasota arts community since 1971, McLeod believes that If we lose our history, we lose our reputation. “You understand where you're going by looking backward and acknowledging it. And that's what we're doing.”
CLIFFORD MCDONALD, A PAINTER AND FOUNDER OF ART4CHANGE, uses art to inspire culture, community and social transformation. His portraits, admired for their warmth and precision, draw inspiration from music, social issues and human connection. McDonald founded Art 4 Change after teaching art and witnessing how creativity impacts youth and communities. “I thought about how much art changed my life and wanted to give that back. In the beginning, we focused on curating exhibits that promoted positive social change, but now we’re shifting toward youth programs—especially in low-income neighborhoods. Art is a powerful tool for expression and change, and I want kids to understand that early on,” he
explains. Proud of his daughter’s recent exhibition in the Sarasota County Schools Spring Art Show, McDonald adds, “My dream now is to do a collaborative series with her and exhibit it—maybe even at the Art Center. As a Sarasota native who’s been finding my way as an artist, it’s an honor to be recognized as a Centennial Honoree. To now be honored in this way by Art Center Sarasota feels like everything is coming full circle.”
GAIL EISENFELD HANSEN IS A SARASOTA-BASED ARTIST whose work explores light, movement and emotion through resin sculpture, alcohol ink and abstract acrylic grids. She discovered Art Center Sarasota shortly after the pandemic and quickly became one of its strongest advocates, crediting Executive Director Katherine Ceaser for revitalizing the center, especially through programs that support young artists.
A lifelong member of The Art Students League of New York, Eisenfeld-Hansen moved to Florida in June 2021 after decades practicing law in New York. She has found that Art Center Sarasota offers a similar communityoriented atmosphere to the League, with its classes, open studios and workshops fostering both creativity and connection. “The open studio time is a wonderful counterbalance,” she explains. “Being an artist often means spending long hours alone with your work. The open studio creates a sense of community—you see familiar faces not only at the art center but around Sarasota. When I was an artist-in-residence at the Art Ovation Hotel, several people I’d met at the open studio came to visit. It really builds a feeling of community.”
As one of the Centennial Honorees, Eisenfeld-Hansen expresses deep appreciation: “I am so thrilled and excited about the future of the Art Center. It has such a bright path ahead. I’m truly honored to have been chosen among so many who contribute—I’m really touched.” SRQ
Opposite page, left to right: Susan McLeod, Gail Eisenfeld Hansen and Clifford McDonald at Art Center Sarasota.
Below: Tim Jaeger helped design the public art installation as a three part initiative
multifaceted
A WINDOW TO THE PAST
A public art installation at Michael Saunders & Company’s downtown headquarters chronicles Sarasota’s artistic legacy. Dylan Campbell
A CHRONICLE OF SARASOTA’S ARTISTIC HISTORY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR EVERYBODY TO SEE ON THE STREET. This past January, Michael Saunders & Company unveiled a new public art installation, A Legacy in the Making: Sarasota’s Visual Arts History 1945-65. A Legacy is a 200foot mural wall that can be seen through the windows of Saunders & Company’s downtown headquarters on the corner of Orange Avenue and Main Street, depicting a nearly complete history of the visual arts in Sarasota. Starting with the arrival of John Ringling in 1911, the mural uses historical images and mixed media to create an easily digestible artistic timeline. “It’s a collage of historical images from 1945 to ‘65 and then we also added on three LED panel screens,” says Tim Jaeger, director of the Ringling College Galleries, who helped create the mural wall. “On one panel is a documentary with Michael Saunders on the significance of what we’re doing with this initiative. On the second is a collection of advertisements that ran in the Sarasota Arts Review from 1950 to ‘59 that features a lot of the original Sarasota artist colony artists and the third panel features a collection of additional artworks—we wanted a digital component to the mural that we could continually update.” The mural wall goes hand in hand with the Ringling College Galleries exhibition Origins: Sarasota Artist Colony, which delves into the wave of artists that flooded Sarasota after the second World War, creating what was then known as the Sarasota artist colony. It was this movement that helped create the basis for the artistic community that Sarasota has today—with the creation of the mural wall, which is accompanied by a website, Jaeger hopes to bridge the physical exhibition showcasing artworks of that era at Ringling College with a street-level experience for the public. “We wanted to hit a sort of trifecta with this. You have a large-scale mural wall in a high-traffic area with moving images and bright colors that is easily digestible. The second part is to make it mobile, creating a website that we’ll continually contribute to as more history is brought to our attention, and the third is the exhibition, with the actual artworks and will contain docent tours and all kinds of engaging experiences,” says Jaeger. For Jaeger, this three part initiative is about more than just the preservation and celebration of the visual arts history in Sarasota. From 1945-65, Sarasota’s artistic community flourished because of an intense spirit of collaboration. “The larger message underneath this is that we all need to work together and that when we understand and listen and work alongside each other, good things happen,” says Jaeger. “Sustainability happens and Sarasota becomes a healthier place for all of us in general.” SRQ
showcasing Sarasota’s rich and
artistic history. A Legacy in the Making, Michael Saunders & Company Downtown Office, 1605 Main St., #101, Sarasota.
Below: A guide dog dons a pair of glasses; AI-powered smart glasses help out where guide dogs cannot, such as describing surroundings or reading building names. To learn more, visit dogsinc.org/
A SMARTER LOOK AHEAD
Dogs Inc introduces AI-powered workshop for guide dog alumni . Barbie Heit
DOGS INC, A LOCAL NONPROFIT DEDICATED TO BREEDING, RAISING AND TRAINING GUIDE AND SERVICE DOGS for individuals with vision loss, veterans with PTSD/disabilities and children with significant challenges—all at no cost to recipients—recently hosted its inaugural handson workshop on AI-powered smart glasses. For guide dog recipients, this technology serves as a powerful supplement, not a replacement, to their expertly trained dogs. The workshop introduced five local guide dog recipients, including three from Sarasota, to smart glasses. The AI glasses are designed to fill in details that a guide dog cannot share, such as reading building names, addresses, numbers or describing surroundings. Participants received a complimentary pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer AI glasses, provided by Dogs Inc, to continue practicing outside of the training environment. Dogs Inc plans to continue the sessions and roll out this workshop model to all of the more than 400 guide dog teams it supports nationwide, creating countless new opportunities for the people with vision loss they serve. Each workshop will focus on exploring the built-in Meta AI features and allow participants to connect with a Be My Eyes volunteer—a sighted helper who can see through the camera of the smart glasses and provide visual descriptions and feedback in real time. Participants, accompanied by their guide dogs, will navigate the Dogs Inc campus using voice commands to read documents, identify signs and understand their environment. Karissa Keller, who leads the virtual learning department at Dogs Inc., is one of the workshop leaders. Since her team creates all of the graduates’ virtual training materials, she says that taking on the AI glasses workshop felt like a natural extension of their work and expertise with adaptive technology. So far, she has observed a positive response from participants, who are excited that the glasses allow them to perform tasks—like reading a sign or identifying a gate number—that would normally require relying on another person to be physically with them. Her team also unexpectedly discovered the glasses have an interpretation feature for other languages, making them valuable to an even greater number of people. "The glasses will actually tell you what kind of obstacle is in your way. All you have to say is 'Hey, Meta.' and it'll activate the glasses and you can then ask it exactly what's happening," Keller explains. "If you ask, ‘what's in front of me?’ it'll tell you what's in front of you. And that it’s a really cool experience because not only does the person know the dog is stopping them, but now they have something to be able to tell them what's actually in their way." For those who are intimidated by the new technology, Keller advises they take the first step and at least try. “The world is ever-changing and technology is evolving. You have to be able to change and grow with technology. Yes, there are going to be drawbacks but the technology is only there to make life better and in situations like this, we're not replacing the dog, we're complementing what the dog can do. We're also providing the glasses and the training at no cost right now.” SRQ
Below: The Bouquet Bar is full of flower-filled nooks perfect for conversation or capturing that Instagram moment; A bartender prepares one of the floral-themed cocktails. Bouquet Bar, March 26 to May 31, 5pm-10pm nightly, The Sarasota
SIP THE ROSES
Step into spring at Bouquet Bar, a special pop-up experience inside Wink Wink Food & Drink. Dylan Campbell
THERE IS AN INHERENT AGREEMENT THAT ONE MAKES WHEN ENTERING INTO A BAR, AN UNSEEN CONTRACT SIGNED BY THOSE WHO PASS THROUGH ITS DOORS. Whether one is going to meet friends, on a date or simply wants to drink elsewhere than their home, there is an intention when going out for a drink—to simply be around others. What makes a bar great, then, is perhaps more objective than one might expect. While everyone may have different tastes in interior decor or cocktails, a bar’s ability to be a conduit—for a special night or a unique experience—is what defines a bar’s success. “The atmosphere, the vibes, the music, the bartenders—how much fun they’re having making the drinks—all plays into what makes for a great experience,” says Ashlee Rulison, director of sales at The Sarasota Modern hotel. “In my own personal experience, I like a place where there are areas for you to be able to sit and converse and not feel like you need to be ordering something at every moment.” Rulison recently worked with her team at The Sarasota Modern to transform the hotel’s restaurant, Wink Wink Food & Drink, into the Bouquet Bar from March 26 through May 31. A limited pop-up experience, the Bouquet Bar is a complete reimagining of Wink Wink, from the interior design to an all new food and beverage menu. Created to be an immersion into spring, diners enter through a lush, flower-lined archway, into the space, where the walls come alive with cascading arrangements of wisteria, roses, cherry blossoms, peonies, daisies and lilacs. Every inch of the space is aligned with the floral theme, the arrangements spilling into the bar's outdoor patio. “People love to see this space in a different light. When people come to Sarasota, they don’t always eat in the restaurant at a hotel,” says Rulison. “They go out on the town, so for them to be able to come in here, sit and have a couple of cocktails and a bite to eat is another lively, fun experience for them to have instead of just going to a normal hotel bar.” Both the cocktails and food plates have been designed to mimic bouquets from the charcuterie plate with prosciutto and various imported meats and cheeses to the delectable roasted garlic hummus with Peppadew and seasonal raw vegetables. The cocktail flight— which includes the Hey There Gorgeous; Drunk In Love; Sip, Sip, Frose and Bouquet Baby—arrives arranged in an assembly that would rival a bride’s bouquet, and with flavors that sing. An array of wines, beer zero proof mocktails are also available. “The cocktails are super fun. They’re colorful and imaginative with different types of flowers like hibiscus and lavender that create a different feel for each drink,” says Rulison. “With each food and cocktail offering, the guest can build their own bouquet.” SRQ
Modern, 12990 Blvd of the Arts, Sarasota.
A LIFE IN MOTION
Plastic Surgeon Marguerite Barnett blends wellness and medical care at her local private practice. Cecilia Mould
“I FELT LIKE I WAS GOING TO BE A DOCTOR FROM THE TIME I WAS A LITTLE KID,” says local plastic surgeon Marguerite Barnett, M.D. Dr. Barnett, who was adopted, finds a connection to her biological parents in her passions—her biological father was a doctor, a fact she found out only after going into medicine and tracking him down. When she attended medical school, Barnett decided to go into general surgery and joined the military as a doctor. “It allowed me to do a wide variety of treatments,” she says about this choice. After several years of moving frequently, Barnett was determined to stay in the military but wanted to settle in one place for longer, so she decided to specialize. She selected plastic surgery. Like general surgery, the practice enabled her to help a variety of problems, from congenital birth defects to reconstruction after trauma. Upon retiring from the military in 1990, Barnett’s only requirement was to find beaches and warm weather. She joined a practice in Naples, later moving to Sarasota to get married and open a practice in Nokomis. “The marriage didn't last, but the practice did just fine,” she jokes. As she started doing more elective, cosmetic surgeries, Barnett realized that if these procedures weren’t paired with healthy habits, patients wouldn’t fully achieve their desired results. “I began to envision a full-service spot where we could provide everything from nutritional counseling, acupuncture and hypnosis to help them break bad habits like smoking or overeating, yoga, massage, other stress reduction techniques, as well as facial care and education about how to keep your skin looking good,” says Barnett. She moved her practice to Sarasota in 2003, opening the Sarasota Institute of Plastic Surgery and Mandala Med Spa. Barnett’s philosophy revolves around providing a fair cost to patients. “I work hard for my money, and I figure everyone else works hard for theirs, so I try to provide a very fair cost,” she says. “I shop at Goodwill, and I don't have any kids I have to put through college. Patients understand I have expenses, but that I'm not wasting their money.” At 71, Barnett practices the habits she preaches. Outside of her work as a doctor, she has found a passion for exercise. Barnett is a professional fire dancer and an amateur aerialist, and has always loved artistic forms of movement. She says that while her passion for medicine comes from her biological father, her love for dance comes from her biological mother. Barnett loved dancing with friends as a child and worked as a belly dancer to pay her room and board during college. When she worked as a surgeon, she no longer needed to dance professionally, but her love for the activity stayed with her throughout her life. Barnett says she doesn’t see herself slowing down anytime soon—her joy in every aspect of her life keeps her busy. “I don't have enough hours in the day, but with everything I do, I feel I have some kind of purpose, whether it's making myself feel better about myself, other people feel better about themselves or making connections with younger people,” she says. “It's all important to me. I don't think I could ever really just retire and do nothing.” SRQ
Below: Dr. Marguerite Barnett has built a holistic practice that mirrors her active lifestyle. Sarasota Institute of Plastic Surgery, 1715 Stickney Point Rd, Sarasota, drmbarnett.com
CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF
Paul Hoback, Jr., aims to stick the landing as the new President and CEO of SRQ Airport. Dylan Campbell
PAUL HOBACK, JR., HAD BIG SHOES TO FILL. Since 1995, Rick Piccolo had led Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), pulling it from financial mire into a period of unprecedented growth. Hoback, however, was more than ready to take over the reins when he began as president and CEO of SRQ on October 19, 2025. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hoback spent 25 years at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), working in a multitude of roles. Most recently, he was the executive vice president and chief development officer for the Allegheny County Airport Authority (ACAA), where he oversaw PIT’s $1.7 billion dollar new terminal program. Full of warmth, wisdom and Midwest charm, Hoback sat down with SRQ Magazine to discuss how he plans to steward SRQ Airport into its next chapter.
What brought you to SRQ Airport? hoback I’ve had a deep love of aviation since the moment I saw Top Gun. After I graduated from college with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I started my career with a couple of different jobs. I was a research and development engineer for a window and door company in the Pittsburgh area, and then I was a mechanical engineer for a diaper factory. In 1999, the ACAA was formed, which allowed people who lived outside
of Allegheny County—I lived in Beaver County, just west of Pittsburgh—to work for the airport. Because I had this passion for aviation and wanted to be a pilot, I decided to go for a mechanical engineering project manager role at Pittsburgh International and the rest is history. I had 10 or 12 roles in my 25 years at Pittsburgh International, ultimately culminating in me essentially being the number two at Pittsburgh Airport for the past 10 years. I was running the operational side, but
Below: Paul Hoback, Jr., looks to embody servant leadership as the CEO of SRQ Airport.
I was also the person responsible for building the new Pittsburgh International Airport. That was about a $1.7 billion dollar project to build a new terminal, new roadway systems, new bridges, a new parking garage, a new rental car center and new customer service buildings. That was everything associated with all of the landside functions, then we spent approximately $240 million dollars on renovating our airside facilities. For the past 12 years, that was my planning team that ran point on that and my engineering team that worked on building the new airport, which just opened this past November.
When did you decide that running your own airport was something that you aspired to do? As we were coming up on the completion of that project, I had lots of conversations with my CEO, Christina Cassotis, on what I was going to do with my career—what was next after doing something that in my mind, redefined the airport industry. That’s not because I’m biased, but because I truly believe that the new Pittsburgh airport is very special.
So, how do I top that? Well, I knew that I wanted to run my own airport. I wanted the opportunity to take all of the amazing things that I’ve learned over the past 12 years from Christina and positively impact a team, an airport, a community, because I know how important the airport is to every community out there. In October 2024, I started in a selection process for another airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, and made it to the final two and didn’t get the job. That was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because four months later, I saw that Rick Piccolo was retiring here at SRQ. I looked at the documents they put out on who they were looking for and it felt like every single thing I read was pointing to them wanting someone just like me, with the experiences I’ve gained.
Because SRQ has seen such significant growth, they knew that they were going to have some pretty significant capital programs coming up in building a parking garage, a rental car center and various other facilities. Rick and the team have done an incredible job trying to keep up with that growth and yet there’s still more to do—I look at that not as a problem, but as opportunity.
I also had ties to this community. I grew up visiting my grandmother who lived in Zephyr Hills and my uncle who lived in St. Pete and vacationing in Siesta Key. My sister has lived in the area for many years. When I started to do more research about the Sarasota-Bradenton area, I started seeing all of the connections to the Midwest—I characterize Pittsburgh as a lot more Midwestern than Northeastern—there’s a friendliness where everybody cares about each other and I get that same feeling down here. Even as you drive around during snowbird season, you’ll see license plates
from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. I couldn’t have picked a better location, a better team, a better airport or a better region to take on the responsibilities as CEO of an airport. It’s truly an honor to be here.
What were some of those qualities that SRQ was looking for in a CEO that you saw in yourself? One of the most important things that I saw was the idea around servant leadership. When you look at the typical organizational chart of a company, the CEO is at the top. I very much believe that should be flipped. I am here as the CEO to serve the people and eliminate roadblocks. My role is to see around corners and not just straight down the runway. Establishing a culture that works, so that I can take away the roadblocks from my people on the front lines that are truly taking care of the customers, our airlines and our tenants here.
When you see these documents of what a potential airport looks for in its CEO, rarely do you see the words “servant leadership.” That struck a chord with me. I felt like Rick led this team and this airport from a servant leadership perspective, which is why I felt like that was the most important quality that I could offer as CEO.
How would you characterize the current era that SRQ Airport finds itself in? Is it still an era of explosive growth or is it one of managing change? Passenger growth has slowed significantly. Between 2018 and 2023, our passenger numbers exploded—we went from 1.3 million in 2018 to 4.3 million passengers in 2023. From 2023 to 2025, it’s grown from 4.3 million to 4.5 million passengers. Now, we have to look at strategic growth as we continue to grow capacity in our facilities—what are the markets we want to target and where do we want to grow?
There’s certainly an opportunity on the West Coast. We currently don’t fly past Denver. There are markets like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles that we have to take a much closer look at. Since Sarasota is an up-and-coming tech community, should we have direct flights to San Francisco International Airport and Silicon Valley? In the next three to five years, there’s an opportunity to grow our international service. We’re also always going to be looking at potentially underserved markets in the Midwest and Northeast, like Milwaukee, Tulsa and New Orleans, which we currently don’t have service to. Because of some of the facility concerns we’ve had over the past couple of years, the number one priority was making sure that we had enough passenger gates. That’s why the focus was on the new ground boarding facility that opened up last year, which Allegiant Airlines operates out of. The next phase of that is addressing the capacity concerns, such as parking, rental car
opportunities and the baggage claim system. We only have three baggage claim devices and have six airlines, potentially during peak times, that need to unload on those devices.
For 90% of the year, we don’t have problems with parking or curbside pickup or our rental car facilities. During those peak travel times, which is 10% of the year, we have those concerns. As we continue to grow, we’re going to see that 10% become 20% or 30% of the year, which is why we have to address those capacity concerns right now. We will be moving forward with designing a new parking garage and designing a new rental car center. In most airports, the main nonaeronautical revenue source is parking. At SRQ, it’s rental cars. It’s not that we don’t have enough rental cars right now, we need bigger facilities to store the cars and that are more efficient in their turnaround time.
What were your first impressions of SRQ Airport? I truly believe that the best airports reflect the soul of the community that they are serving. That is what I found that SRQ does best. This region seems to have what I know to be that Midwest charm. Being from Pittsburgh, I always thought of Pittsburgh Airport as being the friendliest airport. When my son chose to go to Arizona State, I began to fly into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport quite often. It would always make me angry, because Phoenix’s motto is “America’s Friendliest Airport,” and I thought, no, Pittsburgh is the friendliest airport. Then, when I started to fly into SRQ during the selection process, I’d never experienced anything like it. The atmosphere at SRQ felt different; it felt real. From the airport employee to the airline employee to the TSA contractors and cleaning crews, it feels like every single person cares about you. That’s how I feel about this region. It is the soul of a community that is being reflected inside of an airport. That hospitable feeling that you get when you walk into SRQ Airport is the special sauce that this airport has to offer and is what I have to embrace and try to make better as we continue to grow.
The soul of the airport is in that boutique, family feel, but we have some opportunities to make some improvements to the aesthetics of the space that will bring everything together. This area is an absolute paradise with so much to offer, with an incredibly rich arts and culture scene, amazing restaurants and of course, the beaches. There needs to be a sense of place here at the airport from an aesthetic perspective. I don’t want the airport to be a point of someone’s travel when heading to a destination. I want the destination to be represented right here. SRQ
Below: Dr. Matthew Wielicki argues against the use of global climate models when creating local building restrictions and regulations.
THE CLIMATE CONUNDRUM
Former earth science professor Dr. Matthew Wielicki came to Sarasota for a lecture on how climate data influences design decisions and building regulations. Dylan Campbell
DR. MATTHEW WIELICKI IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. But he’d argue, however, that Earth is. Formerly an assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama and a post-doctoral research scientist at UCLA, Dr. Wielicki veers left where mainstream media turns right. Working from a basis of science and observable data, Dr. Wielicki is an outspoken critic of the traditional models of climate change, arguing against what he views as the “sensalization” of the climate crisis. On January 22, Hoyt Architects hosted Dr. Wielicki as a part of its 2026 Urban Speakers Study Series for his talk Measured vs. Modeled: Climate Data and Design Decisions.
What were some of the focus points of your talk in Sarasota? wielicki This is an audience, people in the architecture and design field, that I don’t speak to very often. What I’m focusing on is how assumptions and models can turn into hardcore constraints into building codes and planning designs. What is happening now is that the climate community is focused on the most unlikely scenarios, because those are the scenarios that are the most sensationalized. They create the most publicity, the most clicks. Because of the sensationalization that’s going on, policymakers and planners are taking all of that information as though it’s a likely scenario for the future. We’re seeing very unlikely climate futures that are being hardened into regulations today for future plans that are going to be super costly. We talk about affordability, the cost of housing and construction costs—why do insurance companies pull out of places? People say that it’s because of climate change, but it’s not really. It’s because the regulations that are built in from these climate assumptions mean that it would be impossible to rebuild it to those regulations.
We’re seeing this, for example, in the Palisades and Malibu in Los Angeles. Nobody can build back to those regulations, the septic systems have to be pulled, new pilings have to be put in, because everything is out of code. Instead, you have to focus on getting good data now to make good policy decisions for the future. I try to focus on measurable and observable data. We’ve been collecting data for a long time—the 1990s was when the climate crisis kicked off and everybody started worrying about it. We have lots of satellites and three decades worth of data to mine from. If this was 1996 and the first IPCC was coming out, it would be hard for me to question this, because we didn’t have a lot of data. Now, we have decades of good, global evidence and we’re just not seeing that the original projections for things like the acceleration of sea level rise
or island nations disappearing, these catastrophic events, we’re just not seeing them happen. But that hasn’t slowed down the rhetoric, which is spilling into policy and regulation. If we followed that rhetoric in the ‘90s, a lot of the stuff we have today wouldn’t have ever been built. Do we want to do that to ourselves for the future? It’s modeled versus measured—are we going to focus on these climate models, particularly the unlikely ones, or should we focus on the three decades of great data that we have? We tend to want to use these very unlikely climate models and to me, that’s a scary problem.
How has the way in which we collect climate data shifted over time? This is a big deal. The closer we are to today, the better the measurements are, because technology has improved. So 100 years ago, if there’s a hurricane in the mid-Atlantic that never reaches the shore, the only record we had of it were the drunk sailors jotting down that the wind was so bad they could barely get the rum in their mouths. The further you go back, the data becomes far less granular. I go all the way back to things like rock records, sediment records and ice cores. So when people say that this is the most unprecedented change in the last 125,000 years, that’s crazy because if you go back a few thousand years, we just don’t have the resolution to know if things change like they have in the last century.
And you believe that it's hard to use the data now to predict what might happen in the future? It depends. If you look at global satellite data, for example, that looks very different from local data. According to global satellite data, oceans are changing at something like a few kilometers a year. In Stockholm, however, sea levels are dropping 3.6 millimeters per year because the area is still rebounding from the last time that there was a big ice sheet on
top of it. You can’t use global climate models for local projections—I tell people that you should focus on what’s happening locally. In certain aspects, yes, the data today is good for predicting climate change, but we’re injecting global climate models into local restrictions and regulations. That’s a problem.
As an area that has been slammed by major hurricanes in the past few years, how would you say that the changing climate is impacting catastrophic weather events? We think of hurricanes as relatively simple. You warm the waters of the oceans and a hurricane gets more energy and becomes more powerful. What we’re seeing is the exact opposite. It’s pretty much uniform that the oceans have warmed, very gradually, almost everywhere on earth. Since 1990, we’ve had good satellites that can measure hurricanes quantitatively, with measurements, instead of qualitatively, as in the number of hurricanes. We group all hurricanes into Accumulated Cyclone Energy—we plot all of the hurricanes that happen in a year and how powerful they are. It seems very intuitive that if you warm the waters, hurricanes become more powerful, they’ll spin longer and be faster. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy has gone down significantly while temperatures have warmed. There is a lot of physics with the creation of water droplets that people didn’t think about and everything is just more complex than it’s made out to be. The models predicted that hurricanes would become stronger and more frequent and we’re not seeing that.
We’ve seen the frequency drop and we know why. Because the poles warm faster than the tropics—which we’re seeing in observational data right now—that means that the heterogeneity, the difference between the warmth at the equator and the cool at the poles, is less. That heterogeneity, the bigger the difference between the equator and the poles, the more energy storm systems have and the more volatile hurricanes will be. If the temperature between the poles and the equator was equal, we wouldn’t have hurricanes. There would be no energy in the system to want to distribute the heat. The headlines don’t focus on that anymore, instead they focus on rapid intensification. Rapid intensification is an artifact of the technology we have now. We can fly planes into hurricanes and drop in sensors, we have satellites picking up hour to hour, minute to minute. We didn’t have all of the instruments in the 1980s, for instance, to do this. As technology advances, we notice new things in the climate system, but if we didn’t have that technology before, I don’t think it’s a fair assessment to say, “This is increasing because we can now measure it.” We can only now measure these things, so of course they’re increasing.
Landfalls of hurricanes in the United States have not increased. Landfalls of Category 3 or plus hurricanes have not increased. Climate change isn’t just a local phenomenon. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy is going down. I give people credit when they make a prediction and it’s a little bit wrong, say an increase in energy is modeled at 10% and it’s 8%. But when you get the directionality wrong—we say something is going to increase and it decreases—there’s a fundamental problem in whatever model you had. SRQ
THE QUEEN OF BROADWAY
Idina Menzel performed at the Van Wezel in March for the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation Gala. Barbie Heit
THIS PAST MARCH, THE VAN WEZEL PERFORMING ARTS HALL AND SARASOTA PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION welcomed the award-winning superstar, Idina Menzel, to the stage to perform as part of the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation Gala: Defying Expectations: An Evening in Three Acts. Menzel first entered the spotlight as Maureen in Rent and won a Tony Award for Elphaba in Wicked. As the voice of Elsa in Frozen and Frozen 2, she helped drive both films to global success; her song Let It Go earned an Academy Award and a Grammy. She recently returned to Broadway in Redwood, co-conceived with Tina Landau, receiving a Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League and recognition from New Dramatists. On screen, she has appeared in Enchanted, Disenchanted, You're So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, Cinderella and Uncut Gems, with television roles in Glee and Beaches. The Foundation’s Gala showcased Menzel’s incredible talent while raising nearly $1.4 million to support arts education, community engagement and creative growth across our region. Set against the scenic backdrop of The Bay, more than 340 distinguished guests gathered for an evening that unfolded as a theatrical experience with a Frozen-themed cocktail hour, a Wicked-inspired dinner and a lively Rent after-party—each reflecting iconic moments from Menzel’s celebrated career.
Starting with your iconic Broadway roles—Maureen in Rent, Elphaba in Wicked, and later Elsa in Frozen—do you think you had any sense at the time these projects would inspire generations, or do you think you only realized their impact in hindsight? menzel I honestly think you only realize the impact in hindsight. I do realize how they make me feel when I'm in the process of creating them and I get a sort of intuition that there’s something special about them, but I don't think I realize how far they reach multigenerationally and that they would resonate with so many people. I just know that it feels really special when I'm in it and that there's something that is being said in the work, the messaging and in the empowerment of these characters that really feels true to me at the time. You’ve become a role model for so many young people. How do you view that responsibility? Elphaba and Elsa, they are great role models because they're all about really harnessing your inner strength and what makes you unique. I feel incredibly responsible—it’s all about embracing your power and your identity and what makes you special in the world, and that's very delicate and fragile. To be in a position to have a connection with young people through these characters has been one of the greatest gifts in my career and my life.
In the past, you’ve spoken openly about your anxieties and self-acceptance. How has your understanding of confidence changed over time? This is where being a role model is difficult because I can say the right thing to you right now, but the truth is, I'm still contending with the same stuff I was in the past. Maybe I'm a little better at faking it. I like to tell people that I'm working on things and I have better days than others, but I'm still working on my own self-esteem and tools to help me be my best self, give my best performance on any day and not worry about what people think. Those are things that we all deal with and we all experience, and they don't change just because I'm older and wiser. I'd be lying if I said any differently.
Of all the work you’ve done, is there one role or performance that you feel most passionate about? Honestly, being a mother and a parent is the greatest role—I feel very passionate about it. Being a mom and feeling the kind of love, I think it works its way into all aspects of my creative self, my artistic self. It also gives me great perspective. So speaking to the anxiety stuff, being a parent, a mom, having something else in my life that is much more important than me and my career has helped me stand on center stage and have a reason to really sing for something. It’s helped me to put things into perspective and to not be as hard on myself.
Is there a dream role you haven’t tackled yet? I always love creating new roles and originating new pieces. I think that it's those that I can't name to you that are in the ether and in my heart, or in the future—roles that are to come that are going to resonate with people and stand the test of time and challenge me as an artist.
Why is being part of this gala especially meaningful for you? I'm just so excited to be in Sarasota for such a great cause. We all have to prioritize arts education these days because it's getting cut everywhere we look. It's so important to me that kids have the arts as a tool for expressing themselves, as an arena to feel comfortable trying something and being free. We're at a beautiful venue raising awareness and money for arts education, which is something that’s near and dear to my heart.
And will you be performing barefoot? Probably at some point. I always try to put the heels on because I like the way it makes me look in my dress or suit, but then it just becomes not worth it anymore. *The shoes did come off near the end of the show—just before “No One Mourns the Wicked”—and they stayed off through the incredible encore, “Defying Gravity,” which brought down the house with thunderous applause and an enthusiastic standing ovation. SRQ
This spread, left to right. Image courtesy of Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation. Idina Menzel Sardi's Caricature Unveiling, photo by Nicole Wilson Photography. Idina Menzel at the world premiere for Disney's "Frozen 2" at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Picture: Paul Smith/Featureflash. Performing at the 2014 CMA Country Christmas in Nashville, Tennessee, photo by Debby Wong.
RELOCATED ARCHAEOLOGIST
Chelsea Freeland, Operations and Programs Manager at Architecture Sarasota. Cecilia Mould
CHELSEA FREELAND, Operations and Programs Manager at Architecture Sarasota, relocated to Sarasota last December from Asheville, North Carolina. Freeland moved for her position at Architecture Sarasota, but has found that the area uniquely suits her interests in architecture and scuba diving. An archeologist, Freeland spent 10 years working for the federal government until she decided to look for a position at a nonprofit organization. At Architecture Sarasota, Freeland handles operations and public programming, including lectures, tours and collaborative projects.
What is your favorite part of living in Sarasota?
chelsea Being close to the beach. I'm a scuba diver, so just being able to get in the water to dive regularly is amazing.
Did anything surprise you after moving to Sarasota? I didn't really have an image in my mind about Sarasota before coming here. I had never visited before or been anywhere close to the area. I didn’t come in with a specific idea of the city. It is interesting to me that for such a small city, Sarasota has a bunch of different neighborhoods, and each neighborhood has its own vibe, its own characteristics. I've been able to learn a lot about the architecture in the city, but also find new restaurants and spots. What is your favorite local spot? I spend a lot of time at Project Coffee, because it's close to my office. Michelle's Brown Bag is probably my favorite for lunch. What is at the top of your bucket list? I haven't spent a lot of time down in the southern part of the county, in Venice, and would love to take a charter boat out there, maybe go scuba diving. I also came from an area where we had the opposite tourism season from here. I’m excited and interested to go through a full year here and see how the tourism shifts, especially in the summer.
When you were a kid, you dreamed of . . . Becoming an archaeologist and traveling the world. What are you currently reading or looking forward to reading? Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt Words you use too often . . . Dash, sit! (To my puppy!)
Favorite family tradition? Opening one present (usually a book) on Christmas Eve.
Describe a typical day in your life. I usually wake up and work out, and then I take my puppy for a run. At work, I try to use the
morning to focus on more research-oriented projects, while it's quieter. Then we open the building from 11am to 5pm, and people can come in and ask questions. We have two rotating galleries that are up in the front part of the pavilion, and I like to just talk to people and learn a lot about Sarasota, as people come and tell me about their homes and neighborhoods. In the evenings, Architecture Sarasota usually hosts some kind of program or event.
What would you do with two more hours in the day? Sleep!
Who are your favorite musicians? Bryce Vine, Brooks & Dunn, ABBA
If you could have dinner with one famous person, dead or alive, who would it be? Zheng Yi Sao, a 19th-century female pirate.
Would you rather have a rewind button or a pause button in your life? Rewind.
If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? My three best friends to talk about kindergarten art projects, traveling in Morocco, the nervous system and Florida wading birds.
What is the scariest thing you've ever done? Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane to go skydiving.
What song best describes your life right now? I Ain’t Marching Anymore, Phil Ochs.
What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? I quit my job and moved to Dubai to dig up camel bones.
If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be? If I weren’t an archaeologist, I’d want to be a chef. SRQ
A ROUNDUP OF PAW-SITIVELY PAW-SOME ANIMAL FRIENDS
Whether we need a motivating meow or a well-wishing woof, our pets are constant companions, bringing joy, loyalty and unconditional love into our everyday lives. Each year, SRQ Magazine’s Pets We Love competition invites readers to share the stories and snapshots that celebrate these special bonds. The result is a heartfelt collection of lovable personalities, touching moments and everyday adventures that remind us just how much our pets mean to us. Now, we’re delighted to introduce this year’s “Best in Show” honorees, a group of cherished companions whose stories capture the spirit of this beloved community tradition.
PRODUCED BY SRQ MAGAZINE | LAUREN SUTTER PHOTOGRAPHY BY WES ROBERTS | COMPILED BY EDEN SHAMES
MINI MART (MINI)
THE 12-YEAR-OLD QUARTER HORSE
“Mini Mart—aka Mini—is a lovable, kind and quiet presence in the barn, and a fierce competitor the moment she steps onto the polo field. For the past three years, Mini has been doing meet-and-greets, interacting with hundreds of people each week and becoming a fan favorite at the Sarasota Polo Club and beyond. For many, she’s been their very first introduction not just to polo, but to horses in general—and she handles that role with a kind of natural ease that makes people feel instantly comfortable. She has a playful side, too. Her favorite events are costume parties, where she’s transformed into everything from Wonder Woman to a Lisa Frank leopard to a full dinosaur. What makes Mini so special is her range. She can be incredibly gentle with children and beginners, patient and steady in a way that builds trust immediately. But on the field, she’s focused, powerful and competitive. I first met Mini through my polo instructor, who had her for sale at the time. I wasn’t sure she was the right fit for me, but during one practice, the horse I was riding became tired and my instructor suggested I try Mini. Within the first 30 seconds of riding her, I scored a goal—and I knew. I told my instructor right then that I wanted her. When you know, you know. She’s been part of my life ever since, and it’s impossible to imagine it any other way.”
— Owner Melissa Wightman
FUN FACT Once, Mini ate an entire bag of carrots—including the bag itself! Someone had left the bag near her stall and she helped herself to it. Horses have sensitive stomachs, so we were really worried for a day or two that the bag might make her sick. She was fine, and now we keep a very watchful eye on her stall. ANTHEM FOR YOUR PET Let’s Go Girls! by Shania Twain.
INDY THE 10-YEAR-OLD GOLDEN RETRIEVER
“Indy is a 10-year-old golden retriever who’s pretty much stuck at the age of four. She grumbles to be petted and complains with the whines of a puppy if you stop. Indy’s love for people is almost infectious. Her excitement and joy over an interaction with a human leave everyone with a smile that’s unavoidable. Indy has been a therapy dog since she was about three years old and has volunteered in schools, nursing homes and adult medical day centers. Alongside her human, Kat, Indy has enjoyed sharing her contentment, happiness and love of life with people of all ages. From the 6-year-old nervous to read, to the 13-year-old feeling the pangs of adolescence, the 19-year-old embracing young adulthood and the 90-year-old savoring life’s precious moments, Indy has embodied what truly matters most: the importance of being present. ” Owner Katherine Howser
FUN FACT We call her “our little clown baby” because when we first got her at 8 weeks old, one of the first behaviors we noticed was her desire to dig in the water bowl. This eventually grew into digging in all shallow, standing pools of water. One of her favorite things to do is lie in the yard on her side and dig sideways like she’s trying to spin herself in a circle. We love how goofy she is! IF SHE HAD A TV SHOW/PODCAST IT WOULD BE CALLED The Indy Method: Happiness One Belly Rub at a Time. Each episode would feature Indy visiting different places like schools, nursing homes, community centers and showing viewers how simple moments of kindness, attention and connection can brighten someone’s day. There would also be important segments like ‘Proper Couch Napping Technique,’ and ‘Advanced Belly Rub Appreciation.’
MIA THE 7-YEAR-OLD ITALIAN GREYHOUND
“There’s a gentleness to Mia that stands out immediately, not just in how she moves, but in how she connects with people. That natural sensitivity led her to become a certified therapy dog working in the Manatee and Sarasota juvenile courts. She doesn’t need to do much. She simply sits, stays and offers comfort in a way that feels instinctive.”—Owner Karen Diamond, pictured on the previous spread. FUN FACT When Mia enters the courtroom, she will visit each person and then inevitably settle on the one who is in the most emotional distress! IF SHE HAD A TV SHOW/ PODCAST IT WOULD BE CALLED Mia Unfiltered: A Lifestyle and Opinion Podcast. ANTHEM FOR YOUR PET Vogue by Madonna.
OPAL
THE 3-YEAR-OLD MIXED BREED
“Opal was a gift given to us by close friends after we lost two babies. They bred their dog just to give us a dog. We were able to see sonograms of her and the other puppies before they were born and meet her even before she opened her eyes. She is the best gift we have ever been given. She has brought so much joy and love into our lives.” —Owner Tessa Conroy FUN FACT Opal spends more time upside down than she does right side up. When she was a puppy, I walked into the room, and she was upside down, staring at me. I thought it would be a one-time funny thing, but every day, that is her favorite way to be! She loves to hold her toys while she is upside down. IF SHE HAD A SHOW NAMED AFTER HER, IT WOULD BE Opal’s Wiggle World: Only Good News Allowed
“When the Bluey movie comes out, we’ll be watching it at CineBistro.”
—Amy Berk
VIOLETTE ELOISE THE 5-YEAR-OLD BULLDOG
“I adopted Violette when I lived in Boston during COVID. She has been by my side ever since. She goes everywhere with me as much as she can—she’s earned her wings on Delta. We’ve traveled to NYC, San Fran, Napa, Atlanta, Nashville, Miami, D.C. and Montreal. She loves walks and she goes on bike rides with me in her trailer. In addition to her long-distance travels, she loves local spots. Violette’s frequented places include Barnes & Noble, Starbucks Midtown, Whole Foods, UTC, the Sarasota Farmer’s Market, Morton’s, the beach and St. Armands. When I leave the house, she loves to watch Bluey! And when the Bluey movie comes out, we’ll be watching it at CineBistro!”—Owner Amy Berk
PERFECT DAY Violette loves mealtime and bike rides the most, followed by walks. She snoozes on one of her two beds throughout the day and snuggles in her cubby on the couch for our evening lounge. FUN FACT Violette has traveled so much, she has earned her wings! Next up, the motherland—France!
TULLY (TULLAMORE DEW)
THE 8-YEAR-OLD IRISH SETTER
“He is named after Tullamore Dew, my late father’s favorite Irish whisky. He is a two-time winner for his costume as Uncle Sam at the Longboat Key Fourth of July parade sponsored by the Rotary Club. He loves everyone and has the rollicking personality that Irish setters are known for. He loves to pose for pictures and delights in the compliments he receives. He loves to dress up—he was a water buffalo at Halloween. He is also a die-hard Red Sox fan, like his mother. His duties include being President of the Longboat Key Red Dog Club. Finally, he loves to sleep with all four paws in the air, and his nose is so long that he snores like a person. He is a wonderful dog who brings joy to our lives every day! He is also a service dog for people with Alzheimer’s. His calm and friendly demeanor is perfectly suited to this role. —
Owner Eileen Kamerick and husband Vic Heckler FUN FACT
Tully loves to serve as a therapy/comfort dog for Alzheimer’s patients. Once, he was brought into a patient’s room and the patient misunderstood why he was there. The patient became very agitated and said she could not feed and take care of Tully because she thought they were giving the dog to her. Tully jumped on her bed and let her pet him, and she was soothed by his gentle and loving manner. It was a lovely moment for the patient and her family.
PHOEBE
THE ALMOST-2-YEAR-OLD DOMESTIC CAT
“Phoebe is a white and tan cat with equal parts cuddly curiosity and playful sassiness. She loves to bird-watch, indulges in daily zoomies and accompanies her mom in the kitchen while she cooks. She doesn’t let anyone leave the house unless they throw her an ice cube to play with for her troubles, and she purrs every time her mom is near. She’s quite the talker and has earned the nickname ‘Chirpy’ in our household. She’s the perfect companion. Phoebe was discovered in Manatee County, abandoned at just three days old. Through a foster friend of my grandmother’s, I learned of this kitten right as I was moving to a new place that finally allowed me to have a pet. In a kismet sign of fate, Phoebe was estimated to have been born on my move-in date—June 3. I held that tiny little bundle in the palm of my hand and she immediately started to purr. What has transpired since is a beautiful journey of late-night cuddles, many a creamy treat and a playful invasion of personal space. I am thankful to be her human every day—even when she leans a little too much into one of her most-used nicknames, ‘Stinky.’” —Owner Alyssa Holcomb FUN FACT Phoebe is an ice-cube addict—and she willingly acknowledges it. If I’m in the kitchen, she won’t leave me alone unless I acknowledge her with an ice cube thrown her way. If she hears me unlock the door to leave, she zooms in from wherever she is and almost always blocks my way until I fetch her an ice cube as a sort of toll payment. IF SHE HAD A SHOW The Other Aristocat
DAN
( DAN THE MOLD DOG)
THE 2-YEAR-OLD GERMAN SHORTHAIRED POINTER
“Dan is a certified mold detection dog who came into our lives during one of the hardest seasons our family has ever faced. We were sick, overwhelmed and searching for answers about what was affecting our health and our home. At the same time, we were building a business centered on helping families navigate the very problems we were living through ourselves. From the beginning, Dan was there for me in ways I never expected. On my hardest days, he was my constant, steady, calm companion, always by my side. While we were learning just how deeply hidden mold can impact families, Dan was discovering his purpose. He didn’t just train to detect mold; he loved the work and thrived in it, as if he knew it mattered. What started as training became a partnership built on trust, purpose and heart. As our family worked toward healing, Dan became both my support and the heart of our business. Today, he does for others what he helped us do: find answers, restore safety and move forward with hope.”
Owner
Amanda Dennehy
PERFECT DAY Going to work, running on the beach, chasing birds, then ending the day curled up with his people. WHAT HE’S THINKING Who needs my help today? Did I make a difference? Are we going to the beach after?
MAKO
THE 7-YEAR-OLD BOXER
“Mako found his way to us via Facebook during what can only be described as peak chaos. I was on maternity leave with a four-month-old, a three-anda-half-year-old, and a seven-year-old female Boxer. My immediate thought? This would be a great time to add another dog to the family. Drowning in chaos? Absolutely. Meant to be? Without a doubt. A true COVID-era pup, Mako made himself right at home. He’s the ultimate work-from-home companion, although he does draw the line at Zoom calls he isn’t invited to. (The audacity.) He is, in every way, a Boxer—goofy, dramatic and guaranteed to make us laugh daily with his signature shenanigans. But beneath all that beautiful chaos is something truly special. Mako has an incredible ability to show up exactly when it matters most. He senses sadness. He senses overwhelm. And somehow, this dog—who is usually the definition of chaos—becomes the definition of calm when you need it.” —Owner Hallie Harris FUN FACT If you want to see Mako completely unravel, just hop on a Zoom call. Growing up in the COVID era, Zoom calls were just part of life in our house, and Mako has developed a very strong opinion about them. The moment I start talking to anyone who isn’t him, the protests begin. IF HE HAD A SHOW Zoom Crashers—One Dog’s Mission to Derail Every Small-Business Meeting, One Bark at a Time
SADIE (SADIE DAWG)
THE 3-YEAR-OLD CATAHOULA LEOPARD DOG
CHEETO & OLIVE THE 8-MONTH-OLD RESCUE DUO
“We adopted Cheeto in June of 2025 after losing one of our cats. I saw his photo on the Gulf Shore Animal League website and immediately fell in love. Three months later, a friend sent me a Facebook post about a tiny kitten that had been chased into someone’s garage by their dog. They didn’t know what to do with her, so I offered to pick her up and foster her until we could find a home. At first, I thought the kitten was a boy and named him Oliver. The next day, the vet informed us that Oliver was actually Olive. She needed antibiotics, eye ointment and had to be quarantined for two weeks. During that time, Cheeto sat outside the door constantly, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was inside. The moment the quarantine ended, we let Olive out—and within minutes, she and Cheeto became best friends. Our plan had been to find Olive a home, but once we saw them together, there was no question. She was already home. Rescuing animals has always been important to me, and now our backyard even has over 200 feet of enclosed cat tubes so they can safely explore outside. Cheeto and Olive spend most of their time racing through the tubes together. ”—Owner Jennifer Bash PERFECT DAY Napping in the sun, racing through backyard cat tunnels, watching birds and squirrels and curling up together at night.
“Sadie was my first big responsibility decision. I had just moved back to Florida, graduated from college and decided to adopt from the shelter.” —Owner Jack Burke
FUN FACT Sadie has always loved the water, but during the last hurricane, she really took things to another level. After a few long, sweaty days with no power and no air conditioning, everyone was just trying to survive the heat. Out of nowhere, Sadie decided she had the best solution in the house. Without warning, permission, or even a second thought, she sprinted straight toward the pool and launched herself in like a full-blown dolphin on a mission. One second she was pacing around dramatically like the world had wronged her . . . the next she was happily paddling in circles, completely refreshed and very proud of her life choices. Honestly, it was impossible not to laugh. Safe to say she wasn’t stressed about the storm—she was just wondering why it took everyone else so long to join her. IF SHE HAD A SHOW A perfect mix of chaos, confidence and very strong opinions about snacks. Each episode would follow Sadie through her extremely busy schedule—supervising the house, conducting neighborhood sniff investigations and judging strangers from a safe distance. There’d definitely be a recurring segment called ‘Is This Edible?’ where Sadie bravely taste-tests anything that hits the floor.
“When he sees another dog on a walk, he will quickly drop to his belly and then army crawl to the dog and try to pounce at the last minute.”
—Lindsey Osburn
CHIMICHURRI (CHIMI) THE 5-YEAR-OLD FRENCH BULLDOG
“I went to meet a different puppy, but the moment I saw Chimi—calm, sweet and completely content being held—I knew he was the one. Now he’s my sidekick, shop mascot and local celebrity. People come into the store just to give him a butt scratch. Chimichurri’s funny things: When his bed is first pulled from the dryer, he will run over to the dryer when he hears it ding. He loves rodeos. He will sit in a seat in the stands the whole time watching. He is fine with the vacuum but will pick a fight with a broom or any stagnant object that he can nudge and move. When he sees another dog on a walk, he will quickly drop to his belly and then army crawl to the dog and try to pounce at the last minute. He loves to chase the water coming out of the hose. When he’s playing with another dog, he will do this flip/roll thing when he’s running.” Owner Lindsey Osburn PERFECT DAY Sleeping in, a trip to the farm, playing in the hose, a fresh, warm bed and greeting customers at the store.
IF HE HAD A SHOW Chimi & Lovey: Farm Side Chats
HOLLY THE 13-YEAR-OLD MAINE COON MIX
“Holly was found barely surviving at three pounds. Very sick, had blood transfusions, a flea infestation and was on two medications. My job was to get her to gain weight. I did that, fell in love with her and adopted her in December 2021—hence, the name Holly. She travels with me by plane from FL to IN twice a year. She now has Chronic Kidney Disease, so I am doing all I can to help her in her daily life.” —Owner Jane Haskell PERFECT DAY Lounging on the patio, then exploring outside, trying to catch lizards. FUN FACT Holly really doesn’t like other cats, especially females. One of my cats, Lexi, in Indiana, has feline asthma and was sick this past summer while we were up there. Holly could tell she was sick and was very nice to her and laid beside her when she was getting breathing treatments and other medications. She seemed very protective toward her.
RIVERS
THE 15-YEAR-OLD BLUE MERLE BORDER COLLIE
“Rivers was a rescue. We got her when she was 18 months old, and she had some health challenges to overcome due to the unfortunate neglect she had experienced. That said, once she was healthy, she blossomed into a very athletic competitor, doing agility competitions, Frisbee competitions and even a little dock diving with our daughter. With those days now behind her at 15, she has been a registered therapy dog for about three years and has been working with CPC (Child Protective Services) for the last two years. She did some hospice work prior, but now mainly does work with the 12th Judicial Court in a variety of roles. She has also been part of a ‘Reading with Dogs’ program with first- and second-grade students in the Manatee School District.” —Owner James Tietz. FUN FACT Rivers loves to open presents. Whether those are her own, or others, Christmastime is heaven for her. She assists everyone with the removal of all that excess paper. IF SHE HAD A SHOW Keeping Up with Rivers—The Day in the Life of a Border Collie with Endless Energy and Intelligence to Boot. HER ANTHEM Blue Eyed Girl
“Rivers loves to open presents. She assists everyone with the removal of excess paper.”
—James Tietz
GIBSON THE 7-YEAR-OLD ENGLISH LABRADOR RETRIEVER
“Gibson came into our family in April 2020 as a bright spot during the early days of the COVID lockdown. After waiting five years for a Southeastern Guide Dog, it felt like incredible luck that Gibson became available for public adoption due to needing some additional medical attention. From the moment we met him, we recognized that he was truly special. Along with his excellent training, Gibson has an enormous heart and a naturally gentle, comforting presence. Just a few months after welcoming him home, our son’s sailing team experienced a devastating tragedy with the loss of a teammate on the water. In the midst of that grief—especially during a time already marked by isolation and uncertainty—it was Gibson who stepped in without hesitation. He became part of the team’s grief counseling gatherings, offering comfort to children who were navigating something no one their age should have to face. In those moments, Gibson did exactly what he was meant to do. While he may not have continued on the traditional path of assisting someone who is vision-impaired, his purpose revealed itself in a different way. His presence brought connection and a sense of calm during an incredibly difficult time, and it became clear that his impact was meant to be shared more widely. We feel endlessly grateful to have Gibson in our lives. His sweet disposition continues to fill our home with comfort, love and a deep sense of gratitude every single day.”
Owner Jenny Infanti and the Infanti Family FUN FACT He’s terrified of water . . . except the one time he jumped into a pond unprompted and came out thrilled.
FINNEGAN
THE 6-MONTH-OLD AUSTRALIAN LABRADOODLE
“Whether it’s someone in the elevator, a passerby on the street, a stroll through the Sarasota Farmer’s Market or even someone stopping their car just to ask what kind of dog he is, Finnegan has a way of drawing out a kindness that feels like the very best of humanity. His journey began over a year ago, before he was even born. When our hearts reopened to the possibility of bringing a dog into our lives, everything seemed to fall into place. We connected with a trainer through Dog Training Elite in Venice to support our goal of raising a diabetes alert service dog—starting the journey long before Finnegan even arrived. Born in San Diego as part of a litter of ten, Finnegan, originally ‘Templeton,’ stood out immediately. Even through an online camera feed, there was something about him that felt special. We knew he was ours. At just eight weeks old, he met us at the Philadelphia airport, spent the holidays with our family and then made his way home to Sarasota. The goal is to have him fully trained as a diabetes alert service dog by 2027—ready not only to support his person, but to help other families navigate diabetes as well.”—Owner Katie O’Connell FUN FACT As a tiny puppy, he stole a toy bigger than himself—and still refuses to give it up.
BUCKEYE THE
6 1/2-YEAR-OLD BLACK LABRADOR RETRIEVER
“Buckeye was raised by a Southeastern Guide Dog puppy raiser to be a guide or service dog. However, her genes and demeanor qualified her to become a breeder for the guide dog organization, where I volunteer in their puppy academy. I was looking for a breeder to host and was introduced to Buckeye, and it felt like a sign, especially since I am a Buckeye graduate. I became her breeder host, and after her first litter, she was retired and I adopted her. She went through additional training and became certified as a therapy dog. Through organizations I joined, Buckeye now works in deeply meaningful ways—visiting courtrooms related to crimes against children, supporting veterans with PTSD, and spending time in schools for reading programs and offering comfort during midterms and finals. She has truly become a source of calm, connection and healing for so many people.”—Owner Mary Scharf HERO MOMENT After waiting outside a courtroom, a distressed child came out crying—until she saw Buckeye. She hugged her, and Buckeye gently wagged her tail beside her. When asked if she was ready to go back in, the child said, ‘Absolutely’. IF SHE HAD A SHOW Helping Children in Need
VINCENZO (VINNY)
THE 3-YEAR-OLD GOLDEN RETRIEVER
“My chihuahua had passed away three months prior. I was so used to having three dogs and needed a third. My heart felt like I was missing something. I decided to look on Craigslist and came across a guy rehoming golden retriever puppies. I asked my husband if we could check it out, and sure enough, this person had puppies. We asked for the biggest boy, and got our Vinny. We thought something was wrong with him since he slept the entire ride home from Brooksville. Turns out he was just a sleepy boy. When he came home, he went under every couch and table and pulled out every toy that my chihuahua had lost. It was almost like he knew where they were.”
Owner Kim Rodgers FUN FACT Vinny loves to bring sticks and leaves into the house. One time he had what we thought was a leaf—nope. It was a huge frog. I panicked and had my husband try to get it. We couldn’t find it. I woke up at 2–3am to the frog in our bedroom. We found it and let it out in the front yard. My husband decided to let the dogs out again, and sure enough, Vinny had another frog at 3am. Thankfully, my husband got it out right away. Vinny’s a big frog guy. Mom is not.
JASPER
THE 5-YEAR-OLD TOY AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD
“After our Cavalier King Charles passed away, our house felt noticeably quieter. Not long after, in the middle of the pandemic, when the world felt uncertain and our routines had slowed down, we brought home Jasper. Growing up, I had a full-size Australian shepherd named Pokeberry who was both my protector and, at times, my personal herder, so bringing another Aussie into our lives felt right. Jasper may be much smaller than Pokeberry was, but he arrived with the same intelligence, energy and loyalty that make the breed so special. From the beginning, he has been equal parts chaos, joy and fierce devotion. He quickly settled into our family and made it clear that tennis balls, open doors and morning hugs were now non-negotiable parts of daily life.” —Owner Jessica Muroff PERFECT DAY Jasper’s perfect day begins with his morning hug: tucking his head under my neck and melting into my chest before the day starts. From there, it includes a serious round of tennis ball retrieval, a full inspection of the backyard for suspicious activity, a few spontaneous bursts of Tasmanian devil–style spinning when excitement overwhelms him and strategic climbing onto tables and furniture like a tiny mountain goat. He also loves wrestling and playing with his younger brother Clark, a one-year-old Cavalier King Charles who weighs about the same but cannot keep up with Jasper’s athleticism. IF HE
HAD A SHOW CSI: The Jasper Files—a weekly investigative series hosted by Jasper, a toy Australian shepherd who takes household security very seriously. Episodes would include detailed analysis of tennis ball trajectories, monitoring squirrel activity and routine inspections of the grill and back door. Jasper also keeps a close watch on passing cars, which he believes should probably be chased.
SEVERUS THE 9-YEAR-OLD GERMAN SHEPHERD
“I was a single woman and wanted another puppy to do nosework with, so I sought out a breeder. I chose Severus. When we moved down here, I met my now-husband, and those two took a long time to get along. I always joke that I married my dog in behavior form. Both hard-headed, yet sensitive boys that love one woman to the end of time.”—Owner Laska Parrow PERFECT DAY We would start with a sunrise swim and ball-throw session, followed by a sniffari walk and end with a fun nosework session. K9 nosework is a favorite pastime, and we have the ribbons to prove it. FUN FACT Once at a sniff spot, I dropped my keys and couldn’t find them in the one acre we were walking in. Severus trained in tracking when he was younger, but we hadn’t trained in a long time. Well, I thought maybe he would remember how. So I leashed him up in a harness and told him, ‘Track it.’ He got right to work, and 10 minutes later, we had my keys in hand! He remembered how to follow a scent trail! IF HE HAD A SHOW Things That Go Boom in the Night and Other Scary Things for Dogs—he would interview other dogs about their scary experiences and phobias to help educate us on the dog’s point of view. CATCHPHRASE It’s a catchphrase from Barney on Parks and Rec: ‘We know!’
SOPHIE THE 11-MONTH-OLD AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD
“One day, a friend messaged my husband pictures of his unexpected litter of purebred Australian Shepherds. My husband and I had three cats at the time and loved how easy it was to take care of them, or leave them on a moment’s notice, without having to worry. We decided we wanted to visit the puppies. At our friend’s house, we were having fun in the chaos and noticed the runt of the litter was absolutely gorgeous. All of the dogs were beautiful with so many different coats, but Sophie was tiny and absolutely stunning with those blue eyes. Our friend graciously offered the runt to us saying it would be an honor since he would be able to see her often—he had become particularly fond of her. We weren’t totally convinced to say yes at the time, so we took pictures and said our goodbyes to the puppies and our friend. Every time we looked at pictures of this tiny little puppy, it made it harder and harder to say no. With a little more convincing from me, my husband and I told our friend we would absolutely take her. It was truly the best decision. She is so brave, but is still learning to trust all humans and tiny humans are the scariest of them all. She loves dogs of all kinds and has an affinity for cats. We love having her around and can’t imagine our life without her.”—Owner Lauren Yonge, pictured above FUN FACT Sophie will pretty much do anything for treats. We have started playing a game we call “Which One”. Sophie has to pick the hand that has the treat in it when they are both closed in front of her. We ask her to paw the treat. At first, she’s slow and methodical about it, then she becomes super silly. She’ll start putting her paw on our fists immediately without thinking or smelling. The game eventually devolves into her lying on her side, pawing the air, hoping to hit the fist with the treat in it as quickly as possible. She is so smart, but she can be oh so sassy!
KONA
THE 9-YEAR-OLD VIZSLA-WEIMARANER MIX
“Kona was rescued from a failing gun dog breeder. It was ironic that we adopted him because he has hypersensitive sensory issues, and he could spend quiet days in our art gallery instead of being exposed to the sounds that hunting dogs experience.”—Owner Tre Michel, Kona pictured below. PERFECT DAY Being outside, staying close and moving through the day with his people. FUN FACT Kona could identify voices that he recognized, and he would run to the front of the gallery from his man cave to greet those specific guests. IF HE HAD A SHOW The Love Boat—Kona loves boating and fishing.
“He has hypersensitive sensory issues_he could spend quiet days in our art gallery instead of being exposed to the sounds that hunting dogs experience.”
—Tre Michel
LIDO THE 9-MONTH-OLD RED CAVAPOO
“We lost our dog of 15 years, and after saying goodbye, our hearts needed time to heal. We waited ten months before even considering a new puppy, but the house felt unbearably empty. So one day, we decided to simply go ‘look.’ On that very first day, we met this little guy—and he stole our hearts instantly. It turns out he was exactly what we didn’t know we needed. He’s helped us heal in ways we never expected and has filled our home with goofiness, love and so much joy. We truly can’t imagine life without him.”—Owners Elyse & Mac Schmitz, pictured to the right at New Pass Grill FUN FACT Lido has a very specific talent: detecting unattended items like socks, shoes and the remote. If it’s important to you, it’s important to him. The moment you realize something is missing, it’s already too late. Lido has it. He doesn’t run away—he runs past you, proudly, like he’s parading a trophy he absolutely did not earn. And the second you say his name? Boom. Zoomies activated. He takes off through the house, ears flying, little paws barely touching the ground, clearly convinced this is the best game ever invented. You chase, he dodges. Furniture becomes parkour. The sock? Still firmly in his mouth. Victory. Eventually, when the chase ends and you surrender, Lido does too—but on his terms. He’ll curl himself into the smallest, coziest corner he can find: wedged between couch cushions, tucked into a blanket burrito or mysteriously folded into a space no dog should physically fit, like a fuzzy little pretzel.
“She reads my posture, my sighs, the way the keys hit the counter. She doesn’t just listen, she attunes.” —Sheryl Vieira
SOFIE THE 6-YEAR-OLD SHIH TZU
“Sofie: The One Who Arrived Right on Time. Sofie came first. My niece insisted. After months of travel through Spain, Portugal and Madeira Island, she said gently, ‘You shouldn’t come home to an empty house.’ I almost didn’t listen. Years earlier, two days before Christmas, my dog Harley was hit by a car on Longboat Key. The kind of loss that splits time into before and after. I told myself I was fine alone. That loving that deeply once was enough. But Sofie arrived that October. And then the world shut down. COVID followed just weeks after I returned home, and what could have been isolation became companionship. What could have been silence became breathing beside me. Sofie learned my rhythms before I even realized how much I needed her to. She understands everything—the cadence of ‘walk’ versus ‘later,’ the difference between restless and reflective. She reads my posture, my sighs, the way my keys hit the counter. She doesn’t just listen. She attunes. Later, Summer entered our lives—a stray my sister spotted on Anna Maria Island while visiting my dad and stepmother. Summer wasn’t planned either. She was simply meant. We brought her home, and Sofie—wise from the beginning—understood ‘gentle’ immediately. They formed their own language. Every time Sofie and I returned from a walk, Summer was waiting. Not for me. For her. Summer would sit by the door, patient and certain, rising only when Sofie’s collar jingled. The three of us drove back and forth to New York each summer—long highways, shared back seats, an unlikely trio moving through seasons together. Then the seizures came. Back to back. Sudden. Unforgiving. The house grew quieter than I thought possible. The morning after Summer was gone, Sofie didn’t bark. She didn’t nudge her bowl. She walked to the door and sat, as if memory itself might open it. She searched gently. Then she came and leaned into me. Some dogs chase balls. Some guard houses. Sofie guards hearts. She arrived when mine was still healing. She stayed when the world shut down. She grieved when our family changed. And somehow, she carries joy and empathy in equal measure—more than many humans I’ve known. Sometimes now, when we return from a walk, she pauses at the door. Just for a moment. As if remembering what it felt like to be waited for. And I realize—she is never just companionship. She is timing. She is healing. She is home.”—Owner Sheryl Vieira FUN FACT She’s too little to do a downward dog with me, but the minute she sees my yoga mat hit the floor, she goes to grab her toys as it’s the perfect time to play with mom. WHAT SHE’S THINKING I think we deserve a snack break, just saying. What fun things are we going to do today? Where did Summer go?
ZOE
THE 4-YEAR-OLD LILAC FAWN FRENCH BULLDOG
“Zoe has the wiggles that light up any room and opinions bigger than her compact frame. As a dog mom influencer (@daria.and.zoe), I share our intentional life—homemade meals, reviews and real routines—but the heart of it all is our daily kitchen dance, where Zoe reigns as chief supervisor and taste-tester extraordinaire. Her special talent? Instant motivation. The moment I start prepping her fresh batches—goat milk toppers, pumpkin-blueberry mixes, egg scrambles, salmon poke bowls or cozy bone broth stews—she parks right there, eyes locked, butt wiggling like she’s directing traffic. Too slow? Cue the dramatic Frenchie sighs and grunts until I hustle. It’s equal parts hilarious and heart-melting—especially when she sneaks a blueberry mid-stir, ends up with a purple snout and struts off like she invented the recipe! We built this life together after moving from NYC to Florida with my husband, trading city hustle for sun patches, slower days and more time to cook with love. Zoe’s our constant spark: chasing every ray of light (claiming the tiniest spot like royalty) and photobombing reels with main-character energy. Zoe isn’t just my pet; she’s my creative partner, giggle-generator and reminder to savor the little things—like a full-body wiggle after a homemade feast. She makes every day brighter, and sharing her with the world (and hoping SRQ readers smile too) feels like the perfect way to celebrate our furry best friend.” — Owner Darya Krupnikova
PERFECT DAY Zoe’s perfect day starts slow—no alarm, just waking up to sun streaming in and immediately claiming the warmest patch on the floor (she’s a pro at finding even the tiniest ray). Breakfast is a fresh homemade bowl with her favorites and a nice long walk around the neighborhood. Afternoon means couch cuddles as my built-in shadow, zero plans. Dinner is another cozy homemade creation (bone broth stew on colder days is her fave), followed by burrowing into blankets like she pays rent. It ends with slow sunset views and extra scratches—pure bliss, no rush, just us (and my husband cheering her on).
DRACO
THE 2-YEAR-OLD SIBERIAN HUSKY
“Draco is a stunning white Husky with piercing ice-blue eyes that stop people mid-sentence. His thick, snow-white coat looks almost cloud-like in the Florida sunlight, and the soft pink inside his ears and across most of his nose creates the sweetest contrast against his bright fur and icy gaze. At first glance, he looks majestic and almost wolf-like—but the moment he starts moving, his goofy personality takes over. Draco is playful, dramatic, endlessly curious and always down for an adventure. He doesn’t just observe what’s happening around him—he inserts himself into it. If there’s movement, laughter or attention anywhere in the house, he will find it. He simply has to be involved in everything. Unlike many Huskies, Draco is surprisingly quiet. He doesn’t howl often—unless you start first. Then he’ll join in like it’s a duet. Occasionally, when you walk through the door after a long day, he’ll let out a soft howl as if announcing how happy he is that you’re home. What truly makes Draco special is his heart. If you’re feeling down, he somehow knows. He’ll sit beside you, give soft kisses and stay close until you feel better. The puppy was meant to be a gift for my brother, who was stationed in San Antonio, Texas, at the time, studying and preparing to graduate. Because he was away, I knew most of the caretaking would naturally fall to me. When we arrived, only two puppies were left—Draco and his brother. The moment I saw Draco, I thought he looked like a tiny little furball. I fell in love with him instantly. He was smaller, quieter and noticeably gentler than his brother. While petting them, his brother nipped at me and even snapped toward Draco as if claiming my attention. That moment told me everything. I value kindness deeply, and even at three months old, Draco felt different. He was calmer. Gentler. I wasn’t looking for the boldest or loudest puppy—I was drawn to the kind one. The road trip back to Sarasota marked the beginning of our life together. Draco slept almost the entire drive home, waking only when we stopped for gas. When we first brought him inside, he wouldn’t leave the rug by the front door. It took him a couple of hours to open up. But once he began exploring the backyard, watching him sniff the grass and take in his new world made me fall even more in love. Today, Draco is my world. If he’s happy, I’m happy.”—Owner Katherine Villegas FUN FACT He refuses to eat alone—if no one is in the room, he’ll follow you instead of finishing his meal. IF HE HAD A SHOW Draco, Obviously. It would be a weekly podcast where Draco shares his very strong opinions on daily life. Topics would include scent investigations from the morning walk, squirrel and bunny surveillance reports, toy durability reviews and strategic breakdowns of dinner-time seating arrangements. WHAT HE’S THINKING Is that a bunny? Who closed this door? Who’s most likely to share food tonight?
We enjoy getting to know the pets who are submitted each year for SRQ Magazine’s Pets We Love Competition. Thank you to our readers for sharing their pets’ stories, perfect days and fondest memories. If you’d like to vote for the Fan Favorite from this year’s Best in Show 25 Pets We Love, voting opens on May 1, 2026 at SRQMAG.COM/PETSWELOVE.
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VALUE PROPOSITION
LECOM is nationally recognized for delivering high-quality health professions education at a competitive cost. By maintaining tuition rates lower than many comparable institutions, LECOM helps reduce the financial burden often associated with professional degrees. Graduates enter the workforce prepared to make meaningful contributions to patient care while managing educational debt responsibly and addressing critical workforce needs across Florida.
The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) is the nation’s largest medical college and is the only Academic Health Center in the osteopathic profession. Physicians and administrators at the Millcreek Community Hospital saw the growing demand for more physicians and opened LECOM in 1992. With the college and the hospital as the core of a highly innovative medical education system based in Erie, Pa., LECOM has strived to add to the quality of life of our neighbors by bringing total health care to the community. The College brought a new concept in medical tness and wellness to Erie, built a network of physician o ces, and is the core of the nation’s only osteopathic academic health center, LECOM Health, a highly innovative, multifaceted health care and education system. LECOM offers innovative and affordable education in osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and dental medicine. From campuses in Erie and Greensburg, PA, Bradenton, FL, Jacksonville, FL, and Elmira, NY, LECOM provides student-centered pathways to prepare the next generation of health care professionals. The mission of the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, is to prepare students to become osteopathic physicians, pharmacy practitioners, dentists, and podiatric physicians through programs of excellence in education, research, clinical care, and community service to enhance the quality of life through improved health for all humanity. Serving as a guiding light and cornerstone in medical education and true to the core principles of its founders, the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine has expanded its reach to include exceptional programs in graduate studies designed to provide scholars superlative education in the respective areas of study. The professional programs are dedicated to serve all students through innovative curriculum and the development of postdoctoral education and interprofessional experiences. LAKE ERIE
“The success of our institution will not be judged by our size or number of locations but will depend upon the accomplishments of our graduates and their appreciation of the great opportunity that has been afforded them in becoming an osteopathic physician. It will depend upon their ability to represent us well in upholding our tradition of a people-oriented practice of medicine no matter what specialty they choose or area of the country in which they practice.”
M. Ferretti, DO, LECOM President/CEO
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NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA
CURRICULUM HIGHLIGHTS
NARRATIVE EVALUATIONS
Instead of traditional letter grades, New College uses narrative evaluations to assess student progress and achievement. Faculty provide detailed written assessments that offer personalized feedback and guidance, allowing students to focus on their own growth and development rather than a simple letter or number grade.
INDEPENDENT LEARNING
Every undergraduate student is required to complete tutorials and Independent Study Projects that combine a personalized education with a passionate, independent learning. By working independently (alongside peers and faculty sponsors), students develop autonomy.
CAPSTONE HONORS THESIS
Every major requires the completion of a capstone honors thesis. These independent research projects, which often exceed 100 pages, allow students to delve deeply into their Area of Concentration and display their intellectual capabilities and analytical skills.
New College is a place for students who want more than a degree— they want a real education. It is a public liberal arts honors college where curiosity matters, ideas are challenged, and students learn how to think for themselves. With small classes, close faculty support, and a strong focus on excellence New College gives students the chance to grow into bold, smart, and capable leaders.
What makes New College stand out is its studentrst approach. Students can design their own path, build a course of study around their interests, and work with advisors to shape a more personal and meaningful college experience. This kind of learning helps students explore new ideas, take on challenges and discover strengths they’ll need to address the challenges of tomorrow.
“We are setting the standard for modern liberal arts education in America. The ancient Greek mathematician, Archimedes, believed math derived from a single point on a plane, saying ‘Give me a firm place to stand, and I will move the earth.’ New College will be that firm place.”
Richard Corcoran, President, New College of Florida
At New College, education is about freedom, responsibility, and opportunity. Students are encouraged to speak up, think deeply, and engage with big questions in a setting that values open discussion and real intellectual growth. For families and students looking for a college that o ers both high standards and a fresh way forward, New College is a powerful choice.
New College teaches students to prepare for the last job, not just the rst one. That means building the kind of skills that last: clear thinking, strong communication, creativity, adaptability, and con dence when the world changes. In a fast-moving job market, the most valuable graduates are the ones who can learn quickly, solve problems, and lead with purpose.
Whether a student becomes a scientist, artist, analyst, teacher, entrepreneur, or something not yet imagined, New College gives them the foundation to keep moving forward and succeed for the long run.
Founded in Sarasota in 1960, New College of Florida was named the No. 1 Public Liberal Arts College by Washington Monthly in 2023 and is the Honors College of Florida. New College provides students with limitless, original opportunities for success through a highly individualized education that combines academic excellence, undergraduate research opportunities, and career preparation experiences.
New College offers more than 50 undergraduate majors in arts, humanities and sciences; a master’s degree program in applied data science; exceptional STEM opportunities, including a home for world-class marine biology and marine mammal studies; and intercollegiate athletics in the NAIA.
RINGLING COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
CURRICULUM HIGHLIGHTS
CREATIVE PROGRAMS
EXPANDING WITH OUR REGION
BFA programs: Computer Animation, Creative Technologies, Creative Writing, Entertainment Design, Film, Fine Arts, Game Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Motion Design, and Virtual Reality Development; BA programs: Business of Art and Design, Visual Studies. Ringling’s degree programs are top-ranked among the best in the United States and the world.
CENTER FOR THE CREATIVE ECONOMY
The Center for the Creative Economy is a hub for entrepreneurship, industry experience, and professional practices. The Center is a centralized home for our growing industry, entrepreneurship, and professional practices ecosystem. It provides support services that empower students to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills and pursue professional skill-building opportunities.
CAREER SERVICES
Ringling College of Art and Design is internationally recognized as one of the top art and design colleges worldwide. Each year, our academic programs are consistently ranked as the best in the country and the world.
The Center for Career Services connects students with 100+ industry recruiters each year. They offer training and career preparation services, such as job search strategies, resume reviewing, interview training, portfolio building, and networking events. Career services are available to students and alumni for life.
“At Ringling College of Art and Design, we believe creativity is more than expression—it’s a pathway to purpose. Our mission is to equip students with the skills, experiences, and industry connections they need to transform their passions into meaningful, sustainable careers in an ever-evolving creative economy.”
Dr. John A. Chopka
Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing Ringling College of Art and Design
Since 1931, Ringling College has cultivated the creative spirit in students from around the globe. The College’s rigorous curriculum employs the studio model of teaching and immediately engages students through a comprehensive program that is both speci c to the major of study and focused on the liberal arts. Our teaching model ultimately shapes students into highly employable and globally aware artists and designers. Beyond our rigorous curriculum— pairing studio and liberal arts—we excel at propelling students outside of the classroom through client projects, substantive internships, and national competitions, stopping at nothing to shape our students into tomorrow’s leaders in art and design. Ringling College supports diversity in all forms. Our student body comes from 53 countries, 44 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. An active Student Life program supports multiple clubs and organizations, leadership and volunteerism opportunities, and student support services. Over 73% of our students live on our beautiful, residential campus.
Students are set up for success with access to cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art facilities, as well as seven on-campus galleries. The Ringling College Museum Campus is home to the Sarasota Art Museum, and studio and lifelong learning programs. Ringling College is fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD).
STATE COLLEGE OF FLORIDA
MANATEE-SARASOTA
CURRICULUM HIGHLIGHTS
STUDENTS GAIN HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE in SCF’s high-tech classrooms, studios and laboratories. Opportunities such as internships, job shadowing and clinical rotations help students build real-world skills and prepare for the workforce.
SUPPORT SERVICES INCLUDE academic advising, career coaching, placement test preparation and more. Additional resources are available for students with disabilities, first-generation college students, military veterans and those pursuing STEM careers.
STUDENT LIFE AT SCF enhances the college experience and supports personal and academic growth. Campuses include student unions, cafes and other gathering spaces designed for connection. Students are invited to join student clubs, organizations and events, such as environmental, gaming, literature, art and design and entrepreneurship clubs, as well as festivals, concerts, theater performances and athletic events.
We’re Everyone’s College at SCF, State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota (SCF) is committed to student success. Through a ordable, exible, high-quality education and a welcoming, caring and supportive college community, SCF helps students nd their path, graduate on time and launch their careers.
SCF serves the entire community, including early college students, college graduates and working or retired adults. The college maintains an open-access approach to its libraries, music and theater performances, athletics, bookstores, events, and academic, personal enrichment and professional development programs. Faculty and sta are dedicated to teaching excellence, personalized support and student achievement.
SCF REMAINS DEDICATED to meeting the needs of its students and the region. Through continued community collaboration and support, SCF can help even more students achieve their educational and career goals.
Students bene t from SCF’s a ordable tuition, exible course options and convenient locations. Classes are o ered at campuses in Venice, Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch, as well as online. A new Parrish campus is in development and expected to open in May 2027.
Financial support is available through scholarships, grants, student employment, payment plans and other nancial aid options. Credits from SCF’s Associate in Arts degree are transferable to any Florida public college or university.
SCF student Allison Woronick enjoys SCF Venice’s lush campus, small classes, a ordable tuition, career guidance and her student job. She transferred from a Florida university, earned an Associate in Arts degree from SCF and is now pursuing a Bachelor of Applied Science in Health Services Administration.
“Once I made the switch, I realized it was the right move,” said Woronick. “The positive and engaging culture integrated within a diverse community of people and skills is a huge bene t. I chose to commit to SCF because of the encouraging sta and faculty and outgoing students, who have opened my eyes to the vast amount of career options.”
SCF o ers associate and bachelor’s degrees, as well as credit and non-credit workforce certi cates. Many programs are available in arts, humanities, communication and design, business, health, social and behavioral sciences, public safety, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and education.
SCF alumnus Alexander “Xander” Lowen bene ted from taking classes at SCF Venice and online while working full-time for the Sarasota County Sheri ’s O ce. He earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Public Safety and Emergency Management.
“I’m grateful to State College of Florida for o ering a public safety and emergency management program; it’s hard to nd in some places,” said Lowen. “I enjoyed the exibility to take most classes online. Getting my college education was important to me because with the degree comes more knowledge.”
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
HERE FOR OUR GROWING COMMUNITY
EXPANDING WITH OUR REGION CURRICULUM HIGHLIGHTS
The College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, the College of Education and the College of Nursing work with the local community to prepare students for careers in education, health care, communications sciences and disorders, aging studies, mental health policy, social work, the criminal justice system and other fields.
HERE FOR OUR GROWING MARKETPLACE
The Muma College of Business continues to grow its School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and The Baldwin Risk Partners School of Risk Management and Insurance. This initiative equips graduates with the skills needed to navigate the evolving and complex demands of their industries, fostering innovation and leadership across these sectors.
HERE FOR OUR GROWING FUTURE
USF is the first in Florida—and among the first nationwide—to launch a college dedicated to AI and cybersecurity with the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs integrating AI and cybersecurity into real-world applications, along with AI-driven research for next-generation cybersecurity solutions.
The University of South Florida this year is celebrating the 70th anniversary of our founding. What started as two Florida legislators’ bold idea shared over co ee in downtown Tampa now serves approximately 50,000 students from across the globe at campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and USF Health. While some may wait to celebrate a 75-year milestone, we’ve accomplished far too much in our rst seven decades to stay quiet — a top 50 public university ranking for seven consecutive years, record-breaking research funding and a rst-of-itskind college dedicated to arti cial intelligence, cybersecurity and computing.
“At USF Sarasota-Manatee, everything we do begins with one central focus, student success. Our close-knit campus encourages collaboration and discussion. And students have opportunities to participate in research projects, internships and community partnerships that allow them to apply what they are learning in meaningful, real-world ways. After all, it’s not just higher education, it’s higher purpose.”
USF’s reputation for excellence reached new heights in 2023 when it became just the second public university in Florida invited to join the prestigious Association of American Universities, recognizing its leadership in research and innovation. With programs in cybersecurity, hospitality, nursing and risk management, students develop the skills needed for high-demand careers while gaining hands-on experience in state-of-the-art spaces like the Bloomberg Lab, Nursing Lab and College of Education Collaboratory. We’re a place where people from all walks of life nd belonging, community and paths to success. Resilience, persistence and passion are at the core of who we are. We foster a dynamic environment of learning, growth, opportunity and the free exchange of ideas. We are USF: One community, working together to make bolder, healthier futures possible.
The University of South Florida is a hub for innovation and opportunity, elevating student success through world-class education in a collaborative environment. With programs in nursing, cybersecurity and risk management, students gain hands-on experience while developing the skills needed for high-demand careers. Strategic community partnerships connect students to maximize their potential for lifelong success. We invite you to explore USF — online or in person — and discover how you can thrive here.
The rolling world premiere of Lady Disdain at Asolo Rep gives us the chance to get to know one of the most prolific playwrights of the 21st century. Dylan Campbell
This spread, left to right: Lady Disdain, June 6-27, Asolo Repertory Theatre, 5555 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Photo by Tatiana Meers.
LAUREN GUNDERSON’S FAVORITE ACT OF ANY PLAY IS NOT THE FIRST OR THE SECOND. It’s not the midpoint or the climax of the story— in fact, it doesn’t even happen on the stage. “My favorite act of any play is the one where the play is over and the audience gets to talk about it,” Gunderson says. “They’ll turn to their friend or family member and say, ‘what did you think?’ That last act of any play is the audience’s turn to share what’s important and meaningful to them.” Gunderson will get the chance to witness that last act when her play, Lady Disdain, makes its rolling world premiere at Asolo Repertory Theatre this June.
At 44, Gunderson has established herself as one of the most prominent voices in American theater. She is one of, if not the, most produced playwrights in the nation, with 30-plus works to her name since the debut of her first play, Parts They Call Deep in 2001. She is critically acclaimed, known in particular for her works that center prominent female characters, and yet operates in a lane of her own. Gunderson’s plays have never had a direct Broadway production, remaining wildly popular in off-Broadway and regional theater.
“What I’m most proud of regarding the longevity of my career, is telling stories that center women and center them in a way that isn’t about one character alone in the spotlight defending herself,” says Gunderson. “What’s been most important to me is writing women of depth, soul, intelligence, but also heart. So many of the plays that we think are universal are plays about men, and I want to write universal plays that are about women.”
In Lady Disdain, Gunderson gets the chance to explore those threads while delving into a world that has long fascinated her: fantasy romance novels. In conversation with Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Disdain follows Beatrice and Benedict, rival audiobook narrators who share an incredibly inconvenient attraction with one another. Gunderson, who has adapted and created works based on Shakespeare’s plays in the past, had never gotten the chance to dive into what she deems the original “enemies to lovers” story.
“Much Ado About Nothing has always been my favorite because it’s actually funny. It’s funny at this moment, because it’s about humans who are not as different now as they were 500 years ago when it comes to matters of the heart, friendship and loyalty,” says Gunderson. “What I get to do with these original enemies to lovers is talk about romance—the mythology of love and marriage—and then the reality that is often unequally
weighted on women. It’s fun to read all the sexy stuff in romance novels, but then when it’s real life, we often turn the woman into the villain or pariah.”
In Lady Disdain, Gunderson is able to talk about the truth of the heart while simultaneously dissecting the double standards of modern romance. Doing so requires a deft touch—Lady Disdain, is after all, a romantic comedy—combining quick-witted banter with emotional vulnerability. The heart of Much Ado, Gunderson attests, is the quest for real, true connection. Behind the jabs and the punchlines, are characters looking, like most people in the real world, for someone to be vulnerable with. “There’s a big theme in our play of asking one of our two leads to be real. Can we drop the banter, drop the pretense and the one-up-man-ship and just say the true thing? The entire first act is getting Beatrice to the point where you don’t need a snappy comeback, you just need to say what you feel and be honest about it,” says Gunderson.
Gunderson has crafted a career out of using comedy as a vessel for telling stories
of emotional import. In Lady Disdain, setting the story within the world of audiobook narration, allowed her to play within the confines of an industry that runs parallel to her own. The dichotomy of a classical trained actor narrating raunchy romance novels was too hilarious to pass up. “How funny is it for actors to code switch from reading some of the greatest roles written in the English language to doing audiobooks where they have to read all of these spicy scenes? There is a comedic tension between those two things where we’re expecting one thing and we get another,” says Gunderson. “It’s also a way to unpack the vulnerability of acting as a profession and of what these books allow people to experience.”
Directing the production at Asolo Repertory Theatre is Sean Daniels, a frequent collaborator of Gunderson’s. The implementation of Daniels, who is the director of the Recovery Arts Project and a leader in recovery arts, provided another avenue for a theme with more emotional heft: sobriety. “One of the plot threads in Lady
Disdain is somebody in early sobriety and how courageous and incredibly important that is in this upturned world,” says Gunderson. “It’s an interesting part of the story that I’m quite proud of. Lady Disdain is a romantic comedy, but it’s a rom-com about recovery and truth and all sorts of things beyond that. People might think that it’s a play for women, but it really is a universal story and one that is very funny for all those involved.”
For Gunderson, that universality is where the real power of theater lies. Live performances are witnessed in person, in the presence of others, sharing a moment in time together. “When we look around the theater, we are sitting there in community with one another. There’s a lot of this world right now that does not want to be in community with each other, but instead wants to divide and separate,” says Gunderson. “I grew up going to church, I’m the daughter of a reverend and I often think of theater as a church. It’s a congregation—we’re coming together to find something to believe in, to turn our attention to and ponder the same question at the same time.”
culture city
This page: Renee Fleming shared her passion for music’s role in brain health and development during her discussion series, Music and The Mind, in Sarasota. Image courtesy of Sarastoa Performing Arts Foundation.
HEALING HARMONIES
Legendary soprano Renee Fleming brought her talents—and her Music and the Mind discussion series—to Sarasota. Dylan Campbell
IN JANUARY, RENEE FLEMING, ONE OF THE MOST LEGENDARY SOPRANOS OF OUR TIME, took the stage at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. It’s an action that Fleming, a National Medal of the Arts recipient and five-time Grammy Award winner, has taken countless times. Fleming has performed on some of the world’s largest stages, from the field of Super Bowl XLVIII to the West Lawn of Washington D.C. and international concert halls. As such, one would assume that a love of performing was always something that was innate in Fleming, who presented her acclaimed concert program, Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene in Sarasota.
“What performing gives me has been changeable,” says Fleming. “I can’t say that I enjoyed it in middle school, unless I was in the middle of the chorus or a group. Now, however, I love it. I think of performing as more of a shared experience, of sharing something with the audience.” At points throughout her illustrious career, Fleming has even struggled with performance anxiety, experiencing physical pain before walking on stage. Fleming’s experience with this visceral type of stage fright—an emotional response that threatened her livelihood—was part of what sent her down a different path in her career, one that builds her legacy far beyond that of an extraordinary performer. “I realized that this stage fright was not a physical ailment, but was something that I was manifesting or creating subconsciously. I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was studying the esthetic experiences and the effect on the body and all kinds of healing modalities,” says Fleming. “I found that fascinating.”
From the time newspaper articles were published about the topic, Fleming had been interested in the study of the relationship between music and health. She had met Dr. Francis Collins, then the Director of the NIH, and was curious as to why neuroscientists were studying the impact of music on the brain. “He told me that, unlike any other activity, music appears in every known mapped area of the brain. That’s why we’re going to study it until we can understand more about this relationship,” Fleming attests.
In 2016, Fleming was appointed Artistic Advisor for the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, where she led Sound Health, a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the NIH that brought together world-renowned neuroscientists, musicians and artists to explore the impact of the arts on the mind and body. In 2024, Fleming published an anthology, Music and the Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness and launched the Renee Fleming
NeuroArts Investigator Awards, which fund interdisciplinary research projects by earlycareer scientists and creative artists.
Fleming’s time in Sarasota was brought full circle with the presentation of the paneled discussion Music and Mind: A Conversation on the Healing Power of the Arts, on January 10 at USF Manatee. Presented by the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, in collaboration with the USF Manatee, Music and Mind gave audience members different perspectives on the connections between music, brain health and cognitive development.
The panelists included Fleming, Dr. Jim Schumacher, neurosurgeon, musician and research associate at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Jennifer Bugos, professor of Music Education at USF and Kevin Spencer, Ph.D, an award-winning performing artist and researcher. “These conversations are fascinating to me, because every single one of them is different,” says Fleming. “In Sarasota, we have a magician, a neurosurgeon and musician and a National Institutes of Healthfunded lab at USF presenting their work. Each of these presenters has completely different thoughts on how the arts are essential to us in terms of well-being and overall health.”
Dr. Bugos, who directs the NEA-funded research lab, Cognition and Coordination in Music Across the Lifespan (CALM), spoke on some of the studies she has conducted on musical training, particularly with older adults experiencing the onset of cognitive impairment. “We know that musical training can benefit our brain in many different ways,” says Dr. Bugos. “There have been several cross-sectional associations drawn between music training, verbal fluency and the ability to retain and remember words from a number of different studies. Making music, particularly choral music, can also help us with our verbal flexibility—being able to shift between words—which is critical because a decline in verbal fluency is one of the first symptoms of mild cognitive impairment.”
Dr. Spencer works in a similar space to Dr. Bugos, however through the use of magic. With a doctorate in Special Education, Dr. Spencer and his wife, Cindy previously were one of the biggest theatrical illusion acts in the United States, before pivoting to working in hospitals and classrooms. Ever since, Dr. Spencer has become the leading authority on the use of magic in therapeutic techniques, working to empower individuals with trauma histories, developmental disabilities and intellectual challenges through simple magic tricks. “Based on a tremendous amount of research, the American Occupational Therapy Association recognizes the use of magic tricks as a legitimate and authentic way of achieving therapeutic goals,” says Dr. Spencer. “Our role, my role, your role, as therapists, as humans, as educators, as scientists, is not only to help people walk, speak and grip again. It is our goal to help people participate in life again. Magic, in its purest form, is about possibility, and I get to see the magic and possibility of the people that I work with every single week.”
Dr. Schumacher, who practices neuro surgery in Sarasota, spoke on how music activates different areas of the brain and how he works to help repair damaged dopamine circuits, particularly in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Schumacher has been a trailblazer in cell-based treatment for Parkinson’s, and recently led the first FDA-approved porcine fetal neuronal cell transplantation trials. “The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that coordinates everything,” says Dr. Schumacher. “If you want to move your right hand, the cortex sends a message to the putamen, which gets things going. Music stimulates activity in the basal ganglia, which mediates and motivates movement, timing, rhythmic patterns and pleasure. In Parkinson’s disease, those rhythmic elements can improve gait, balance and coordination. If you give someone that little jolt of dopamine, they can move.” SRQ
This page: Adam O’Farrill found at the Hermitage, the rare opportunity to focus solely on writing music; Britton Smith relished the chance to write and create at the Hermitage’s beachfront campus.
WHERE CREATIVE PATHS CROSS
Adam O’Farrill and Britton Smith had never met. A shared program at The Hermitage Artist Retreat brought the two ascendant musical artists together, influencing the next chapter of their respective careers. Dylan Campbell
SOME THINGS CAN ONLY HAPPEN IN SARASOTA. On January 29, Adam O’Farrill and Britton Smith took the stage at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. O’Farrill and Smith are not part of a band—in fact, until just the week prior, the two had never met. O’Farrill is a jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader, descended from Latin jazz royalty. In the last decade, O’Farrill has established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary jazz, releasing four albums with his quartet, Stranger Days, and released Elephant on March 20. Smith is another multi-hyphenate, a Tony Award-winning Broadway performer and social activist, Smith is the leader of the funk/soul band Britton and the Sing and released his latest album, Return to MAMA, in early 2026. So what was Smith—a musical artist who operates on the edge of the experimental—doing on the same stage with O’Farrill?
Thank Andy Sandberg, artistic director and CEO of Manasota Key’s Hermitage Artist Retreat. “You have two artists here splitting the bill who just met last week,” says Sandberg. “They’re going to have completely different sets with different approaches to their craft. As an audience member, you’re getting an hour behind the curtain—an artist just being willing to share something, to bare their soul, be it some avant garde wackiness or something that’s going to become a big commercial success. There’s a mutual trust between audience and artists that I think is pretty rare.”
The week prior, Smith had returned for his second residency at the Hermitage, while O’Farrill had arrived for his first. A multi-disciplinary arts incubator, the Hermitage provides a haven for artists across many mediums—Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Oscar, Tony-award winners and nominees have stayed on the organization’s beachfront campus—come to create, collaborate and develop their craft. The only thing that the Hermitage asks for in return is that each artist participate in a program that gives members of the community an inside look into their work. No critics, no judgement, just an honest expression of who the artist is in that moment.
“Ultimately, people that come to Hermitage programs are trusting the brand of its artists trying something,” says Sandberg. “It’s not there to view from a critical lens. Everybody is going to have their own opinion on the work, every program is different.”
Both Smith and O’Farrill came to the Hermitage at inflection points in their respective careers. Both younger artists in their thirties, the two have established themselves enough to where their names mean something. Now, it’s a matter of figuring out what their work means to them and what they want to be known for as artists. They are two sides of the same artistic coin, musical artists working in differing mediums, driven by the same creative force, brought together by the unique mission of the Hermitage.
For Smith, working on a project centered around the connection between queer Black men and their grandmothers, art is the looking glass through which he finds his identity. Writing music is how Smith reconciles with familial history and the pieces of his past—his time spent at the Hermitage allows him to reach deeper within himself. “I’m so blessed to pause in such a beautiful environment to create, reflect and process. It feels like there’s also this ghost of music that is always trying to tell
culture city
me something, to whisper the truth to me,” says Smith. “There’s a lot of aggression inside of me that is trying to whisper to me and say, ‘write about that brother. You’ve been given time and paradise and sunlight.’ You’ve been given an opportunity to unpack the truth and I’m grateful that this ghost of creation has continued to push me to places like the Hermitage.”
O’Farrill also used the tranquil beachfront campus as an opportunity to reflect on a whirlwind decade of performing, touring and writing music. The grandson of heralded Cuban composer Chico and son of composer, pianist and activist Arturo, O’Farrill has honored his rich artistic heritage by creating his own unique identity within contemporary jazz. His residency at the Hermitage gave him a minute to breathe. “I’ve been touring for over ten years and have always written music at the same time,” says O’Farrill. “To be here just to write feels clarifying for how I want to move forward in my career. I love what my artistic life has been up to this point. I’ve
collaborated with a lot of amazing artists over the past decade or so and I’ve learned so much from them. It’s great to be able to take those lessons and apply them to my own writing and not be distracted by anything else.”
Smith and O’Farrill’s performance at Selby Gardens provided further insight into another aspect of their work—the relationship between performer and audience. While leaving room for spontaneity and improvisation is an aspect of both Smith and O’Farrill’s performance styles, the two differ in how they want audiences to receive their music. For O’Farrill, a work isn’t complete until it’s in front of an audience—when on stage, the audience is bearing witness to a world that he’s created. “I try to close my eyes and not take any reaction personally. I try to trust that I am doing this thing, some people are going to love it, some won’t get it and some might hate it,” says O’Farrill. Smith, who comes from a church background, operates more like a “mean pastor” when on stage. “I’m
on the flip side of that. I want you to put your hands together right now and clap with me,” says Smith. “If you’re willing to clap with me, you’ll be more willing to have a good time. I like to create an environment where the willingness is contagious, which brings me so much joy, because then it’s not about my songs nor is it about me performing. It’s about me inviting others to feel close to each other.”
Working in proximity to O’Farrill, however, has allowed Smith to take some cues from his creative counterpart. “What Adam said about closing your eyes and going away during a performance is actually something that I’m working on. There’s a level of faith and trust that Adam has in his process—I want to be able to trust that the audience is clapping or engaging with the music,” says Smith. “It’s great to be in a space with other artists who have a different approach, because it reminds you that, ‘oh this is possible. I’m kind of into that and I want to lean into that a little bit more in my work.’” SRQ
GUIDE TO SCHOOLS
PRIVATE AND CHARTER SCHOOLS IN SARASOTA + MANATEE COUNTIES
HERSHORIN SCHIFF COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL
INCARNATION CATHOLIC SCHOOL
SAINT STEPHEN’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL
HERSHORIN SCHIFF COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL
COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL (CDS) is more than a place of learning; it is a vibrant, welcoming community that celebrates the individuality of every student. We proudly embrace children and families of all faiths, backgrounds, and cultures. As a fully accredited early childhood through 8th grade school, CDS has, in just over a decade as an independent institution, grown into a nationally recognized model of education, tripling in size to serve 325 students and representing more than 68 nationalities.
Built on the principles of inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance, our goal is simple: to create a safe, small, nurturing learning community where students impact our world as compassionate scholars and global citizens. CDS is uniquely positioned to bring together families from diverse faiths, cultures, and perspectives—building connections and understanding in ways that extend far beyond the classroom and uniting cross-sections of our community that rarely have a space to come together. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in everything from enrolment to financial aid and academic programming. We are intentional about creating a safe, nurturing environment where every child feels seen, valued, and supported. We welcome all.
School’s Mi ion
The
Our centrally located 8.8-acre campus in Sarasota offers space for educational exploration, discovery, and meaningful student experiences. It integrally supports our commitment to students spending meaningful time outside each day, creating an effective learning environment that enhances their academic engagement and overall well-being.
In preschool, our Reggio Emilia-inspired, play-based approach nurtures creativity and curiosity. In our elementary and middle school programs, a rigorous, student-centered, project-based learning (PBL) curriculum ensures that children not only excel academically but also connect academic content to real-world experiences. Small class sizes and a hands-on approach allow students to dive deep into their passions and explore their natural interests.
CDS graduates are not only well prepared for advanced academic opportunities but also equipped for life. They understand their strengths, think boldly, respect diverse perspectives, and lead with confidence and purpose. At Community Day School, we don’t just teach knowledge; we inspire students to lead with purpose, compassion, and integrity and to confidently chart their own path.
INCARNATION CATHOLIC SCHOOL Fai , Knowledge, & Love
Catholic School offers PK3 through 8th-grade students a Catholic classical liberal arts education in a Christ-centered environment, forming one community of families, students, and staff. This entails a deep integration of faith across all subjects. The focus is placed on the great works, stories, and ideas that have shaped Western civilization. Our curriculum includes Latin instruction to strengthen language skills. We strive to cultivate an attitude of wonder among our students and encourage them to grow in their appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness. Our goal is to form not just smart and knowledgeable students, but virtuous disciples of Jesus Christ.
Incarnation Catholic School provides a Catholic liberal arts education rooted in tradition and centered on the Eucharist, forming the whole person through academic excellence, spiritual formation, and a life of service, inspiring students to grow in faith, knowledge, and love as they seek truth, beauty, and goodness in the mission of Jesus Christ.
INCARNATION CATHOLIC SCHOOL OFFERS:
• Immersive Learning Days/Expanded Field Trips
• Extracurriculars: Offering athletics, academic clubs, and fine arts
• Bus Transportation
• Hot Lunch Program
• Before & Aftercare
We invite you to visit Incarnation Catholic School and experience the joy of our Christ-centered community. We would be honored to share our campus with you. To schedule a personal tour, please contact us at 941-924-8588 ext. 282 or info@incarnationschool.edu.
AS ONE OF FLORIDA’S MOST RESPECTED INDEPENDENT, COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOLS, SAINT STEPHEN’S PROVIDES A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION AT EVERY LEVEL. From pre-kindergarten through grade 12, students are nurtured in small classes, encouraged and supported by outstanding faculty who help them navigate a curriculum that balances academic rigor and character development. Saint Stephen’s delivers a wide variety of customized curricular and extracurricular experiences, and instills each student with a love of learning in an environment where independence, self-worth, physical health and spiritual awareness are valued. Rich academic offerings go hand-in-hand with a strong college counseling program, allowing every student an opportunity to pursue higher education. SSES students are excelling today in colleges and universities nationwide, thanks to a strong foundation for success built on proven educational models. Faith and spiritual education at SSES revolves around inclusion, understanding, compassion, personal character, and ethics. We are proud of the diversity of religious faiths represented and all families and children are welcomed.
Saint Stephen’s students hail from as far north as St. Petersburg and Apollo Beach, and as far south as Osprey. School vans and buses make travel convenient. With an emphasis on creating a safe and welcoming environment, Saint Stephen’s is located on a scenic, gated, 35-acre campus, which includes a state-of-the-art athletic complex that hosts sporting events including football, soccer, track and field, lacrosse, baseball, softball, and tennis. Saint Stephen’s strives to maintain an appropriate yet affordable tuition structure and applicants are encouraged to explore a variety of tuition assistance options. SSES makes more than $2-million in tuition assistance available annually to qualified students. Arrange a tour today and learn more about what makes Saint Stephen’s a special learning environment that challenges, prepares, and encourages students of all ages to explore and achieve.
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SAINT STEPHEN’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL
315 41ST ST. W., BRADENTON, FL 34209
941-746-2121 | SAINTSTEPHENS.ORG
The mission of Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School is to provide a superior academic program which prepares each student for a college or university compatible with the individual’s academic ability, interest, and needs. We instill in each student a love of learning, a respect for all members of the school community, and a fundamental sense of integrity. Saint Stephen’s provides a nurturing environment which values independence and self-worth, health and wellness, spiritual awareness, and responsible global citizenship.
forage
GILDED GOURMAND
masterclass in modern luxury and high-end dining.
C.W. Prime at the St. Regis Longboat Key is a
Andrew Fabian
This page: The beef tartare with chipotle, fried potato and cilantro.
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This spread, clockwise: Grilled sweet potato with Chinese broccoli and salsa macha is a can’t miss entree; Tuna crudo with tamari, scallion, cilantro and breadcrumbs; A bartender prepares one of C.W. Prime’s signature cocktails. C.W. Prime, The St. Regis Longboat Key Resort, 1601 Gulf of Mexico Dr, Longboat Key, 941-233-9036. cwprime.com
IN 100 YEARS, MANY WILL LOOK AT PHOTOS OF THE ST. REGIS LONGBOAT KEY RESORT WITH WONDER. Historians may mark it as an era of extraordinary opulence. Architecture students will marvel at its distinct achievement in coastal harmony. Interior designers will reimagine its high-end decor for a new generation. Anyone who visits today, however, will likely remember one of the best meals they ever had. And that’s thanks to the incomparable menu at C.W. Prime, the resort’s high-end steakhouse concept. The kitchen is helmed by Executive Chef Drew Adams, whose work history includes Michelin-starred Rose’s Luxury, Bourbon Steak and The Dabney, all in the D.C. area. More recently, he co-owned and operated the celebrated Adeline, which won awards aplenty in its three-year run. At C.W. Prime, we find a fine-dining chef with impeccable taste given license to deliver dishes made from some of the most exclusively sourced ingredients on earth.
The menu opens with a flourish of creativity. The tuna crudo is a delicate marvel, featuring razor-thin sashimi tossed in a savory-sweet blend of tamari, sesame, and fish sauce, finished with a nice crunch of breadcrumbs. Grilled oysters showcase a “noseto-tail” culinary approach, repurposing some wagyu steak trimmings to create a luxuriant mignonette of rendered fat brightened with local starfruit.
If you prefer your beef raw, the beef tartare offers a sophisticated profile, using chipotle pepper to add a ghostly hint of smoke that perfectly complements the rich egg yolk and sharp shallots. This is served with a small plate of crispy housemade crackers. Of course, the steaks are the true stars of the beef offerings. At the pinnacle, Sanuki Olive Wagyu, an A5 beef from Kagawa Prefecture. More specifically, it comes from an oliveproducing region on the Japanese island of Shikoku. There, black wagyu cattle are fed high-fat olive mash from the island’s olive oil producers. This results in a buttery, decadent cut. C.W Prime is one of only two restaurants in the state of Florida to offer it, and there are fewer than 20 that can get their hands on it in the country. At $65 per ounce with a three-ounce minimum, it’s best eaten slowly, with a clear mind and cleansed palate.
Larger cuts come from Blackhawk Farms in Caldwell County, Kentucky. Known as one of the best producers of American wagyu, they also grow their own feed and finish their beef on a corn-heavy diet for 500 days— twice as long as most beef cattle. Chef Adams opts for a 5-6 marbling score to spotlight more of the beef over the fat. The Blackhawk offerings are ribeye and N.Y. strip, while the rib cap is the longstanding chef’s cut that sells out every night. For primal extravagance, a 36-ounce dry-aged tomahawk might satisfy, with more traditional cuts—filet mignon, hanger, etc.—also on the menu.
Sourcing, while key for high-end steak, is only as good as the product on the plate. To attain the perfect sear and temperature, the kitchen employs a Josper grill. This pricey piece of Spanish-made equipment is a hybrid of grill and closed-door oven, fueled by charcoal that imparts a hint of smoke. The real magic, however, lies in its ability to generate extraordinary heat. It allows even the thickest cuts to cook perfectly in less time. Salt
and a dash of pepper are all that’s needed, though Chef Adams is no saucier slouch, offering a Pedro Ximénez and beef jus reduction, classic chimichurri, Béarnaise and sweet onion au poivre.
A standout seafood entree is the cobia. This local catch is cooked sous-vide first before being seared with a scratch-made BBQ glaze. It’s served on a bed of Sea Island peas from Anson Mills, which specializes in preserving heritage and heirloom crops. It comes atop an allium sauce of reduced garlic, shallot and ginger combined with the aforementioned BBQ glaze.
The sweet potato entree, meanwhile, satisfies just about every dietary restriction and showcases Chef Adams’ dedication to vegetables. This is no mere menu filler, however—it eats about as heartily as any meat entree. A smoky salsa macha (made with pasilla peppers) provides a nutty, crunchy contrast to the sweetness of the potato and the bitterness of the accompanying Chinese broccoli. This is a complex plate—salty, sweet, nutty and bitter with a dash of kick. Noteworthy sides include the crispy potato pave, a perfect steak pairing, poached in butter and served with truffle aioli that essentially eats like the world’s most luxurious hash brown. Meanwhile, the roasted sunchokes offer an earthy, nutty alternative to artichokes, elevated by a pronounced ramp and mustard aioli.
Naturally, the beverage program is as curated as the meat locker. The Caroline 400 is a lavish riff on a French 75, made instead with Hennessy Paradis (one of the priciest production cognacs on earth) and Krug Grande Cuvée. It’s served tableside in handcut Waterford Crystal, and comes with a full bottle of Pierre Paillard “Les Parcelleres” champagne to take home (or up to your room if you’re a guest). It’s effervescent and spritely and complex, and will lessen the burden of an overstuffed bank account.
The Lucerillo is a wonderfully complex and smoky mezcal-based drink mixed with corn liquor, dusted with chili and topped with shaved cacao. For those who crave the island lifestyle with an elevated twist, the Belafonte is a clarified banana daiquiri that goes down as sweet as a dessert and light enough to sip poolside. And do not miss the simple pleasure of the croissant brioche. SRQ
LIFE’S PRESENT JOYS
Yugen brings Sarasota its first kaiseki restaurant—and an indescribable experience in the profound beauty of Japanese seasonal cuisine.
Sarah Emily Miano
This spread, left to right: Executive Chef Atsushi Okawara assumes his position at the kaiseki counter. Wasabi, expressed from Japan, grated from the root. Shaping rice for nigiri, Chef Atsushi concludes his menu with a unique twist Yugen, Wed-Sun, 5-10pm—two seatings 5pm, 7:30pm—190 N. Cattlemen Rd, Sarasota, 941-414-6143, yugenfl.com
TEN SEATS LINE THE COUNTER. Honey-toned wood stretches toward a Japanese ink-wash landscape of mountains rising through mist over water. Executive Chef Atsushi Okawara assumes his position at the center in crisp whites, sleeves rolled with precision. Before the meal begins, general manager Chris Makapedua welcomes the guests: “There’s going to be a lot of surprises.” A server carries a wooden tray displaying whole lobster, thick fish fillets, crab claws beside oyster shells— each ingredient that will appear throughout the evening. At the hangiri, a wide cypress tub, an assistant folds steamed rice with a paddle in long strokes while Chef Atsushi grates fresh wasabi from the root. The counter transforms into a stage. Yūgen, a Japanese aesthetic ideal of subtle beauty that can’t be described, only felt, embodies its name over eight courses.
Kaiseki evolved from the tea ceremony into Japan’s most refined culinary form, guided by what the season dictates. The tradition shaped Western fine dining; French chefs who visited Japan came home changed, and nouvelle cuisine followed. A multi-course narrative told through raw, grilled, simmered, steamed and fried preparations, kaiseki in faithful form has rarely appeared in Florida, and never before in Sarasota. Yugen opened in February 2026 at the University Town Center, next to its Japanese sibling Zoto Sushi, backed by Tampa restaurateurs Jimmy and Johnny Tung, whose Kosen holds a Michelin star. Behind a private door near Zoto’s bar, the minimalist space— black marble floors, charcoal walls, natural wood—offers a refuge from everyday bustle.
The $195 tasting menu unfolds over two hours in classical progression. Sakizuke opens with sweet Florida pink shrimp set in an umami-infused tosazu jelly—rice vinegar deepened with dashi and mirin—along with asparagus and hanaho, aromatic shiso blossoms. Vibrant
but restrained, the dish upholds Japan while gesturing to the Gulf. Hassun, the seasonal sampler, arrives like a still life on glazed ceramic, its elements drawing the eye from left to right: poached lobster with toasted shitake and Japanese mayo, a Washington-state oyster with smoked watermelon granita, firefly squid draped over negi, daikon-wrapped salmon. Then, so tiny and transparent yet oh so mighty: baby ice fish in ginger-soy, hinting at spring. Small harmonious preparations, each complete, together extraordinary.
Nearly everything—95 percent—ships from Japan three days a week, packed in ice, arriving for same-day prep. The lobster gets cracked right before service. “We just use seasonal fish and seasonal ingredients,” says Makapedua. “That’s why it’s so important.” Sourcing shines in the otsukuri, sashimi served with smooth uni soy and tart chirizu ponzu, clean enough to dissolve on the tongue. Yakimono features nodoguro, the ultimate fatty “black throat” seabass from the Sea of Japan,
Below, left to right: Chef Atsushi slices sashimi with steady hands.Yugen, Wed-Sun, 5-10pm (two seatings 5pm, 7:30pm), 190 N. Cattlemen Rd, Sarasota, 941-414-6143, yugenfl.com
grilled over charcoal until the skin blisters and the flesh pulls away in plump, silky ribbons. Next, onmono—A5 Wagyu tenderloin in a sweet-savory kuwa-yaki glaze with an uni sabayon so decadent the counter erupts in exclamations. Sake flows. Strangers become friends. Chef Atsushi fields curious questions.
The Tungs sought a Michelin-pedigreed chef and found Atsushi Okawara from Iwate, Japan, with over twenty years across three continents. They tasted his menu at The Den in Miami Beach, where he garnered stars in 2022 and 2023. “We loved his food and wanted him to be part of our team in Sarasota,” says Makapedua. At the counter, Chef Atsushi works with composed certainty: steady hands, unhurried knife work, deliberate plating. “With kaiseki,” he says, “it seasonally changes, so there’s always a different experience.” At its heart, kaiseki is omakase—chef’s choice, diner’s trust. By nightfall, the consensus forms: Sarasota may soon claim its first Michelin star.
The classical flow concludes with hot rice; Chef Atsushi riffs with nigiri. “If I just served hot steamed rice, not everybody will be satisfied,” he says. Each piece, from Golden Eye snapper to fatty tuna belly, arrives at its peak. The Wanmono, a roasted red miso broth made
from lobster shells and fish heads simmered for twelve hours, arrives to punctuate all that richness. “We don’t waste any ingredients here,” Makapedua says. Pastry Chef Sean Downey Jr. makes a gentle landing with kanmi: panna cotta with fruit jelly, matcha ice cream and a dorayaki pancake confection with red bean paste— sweet not cloying, like all great endings.
Beverage Director Benjamin Coutts, Michelin Florida’s Sommelier of the Year in 2023, crafted a list incorporating California whites and Rhône reds. Sake sings: from Hana Bijin Shinpaku, a Junmai Daiginjo from Chef Atsushi’s home prefecture, smooth and dry alongside the middle courses, to the apricot-forward Kawatsura Sanki—brewed with Kagawa’s Sanuki olive— which finds grace towards the finish. Two pairings are available: Kage (sakes); Oku (mixed). Yugen captures the moment. The spring menu brings Japanese butterfish and jumbo white asparagus; wagyu gains burdock puree carrying light, vegetal notes; desserts highlight melon and strawberries. “Our goal is to introduce guests to a more traditional way to eat Japanese food,” Makapedua says. “Some people have already booked twice; they love it so much.” One understands why, even if, like yugen, the feeling defies description. SRQ
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Residential Building / Condominium / Complex
Commercial Building or Complex
Mixed Use Building
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NEW Historical Preservation
NEW Renovation / Redevelopment
Celebrating the Gulf Coast’s most visionary spaces, SRQ Magazine’s 4WALLS COMMERCIAL BUILDING DESIGN AWARDS honors projects that go beyond structure to create places with purpose, function and narrative. Builders, architects, engineers and design professionals are invited to submit work across a wide range of categories.
Winning entries published in the September 2026 edition.
RED FALAFEL
Janie’s Amman serves mezze and shawarma rooted in centuries of Spice Route flavor. Sarah Emily Miano
Below, left to right: Janie’s Amman is serving up Middle Eastern delicacies such as stuffed grape leaves and baba ganoush. Janie’s Amman, Wed-Mon 11am-10pm, Tuesday noon-6pm, 1400 Dr Martin Luther King Way, Sarasota, 941-366-1111, janiesammanfl.com
FOR CENTURIES, JORDAN SAT AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE SPICE ROUTE, where caravans rolled through and the spices stayed. The cooking that took shape there is distinct and, for Anas Aqel, co-owner and chef of Janie’s Amman, a source of pride. “Any area you go to in my country, any place you get in, you’re going to try the best food of your life,” he says. “Very tasty, very tasty, very tasty, that’s it.” One bite into his falafel and you believe him. Janie’s Amman, a fast-casual restaurant in a modest strip center near the Ringling College of Art and Design, bills itself as Middle EasternMediterranean. Aqel calls the menu 100 percent authentic Jordanian, and the food makes the case: mezze and street fare imbued with Bedouin soul. Start with the mezze. Fire-roasted eggplant mashed with garlic and lemon gives baba ganoush a smoky depth. Hummus comes smooth; a scatter of sumac and a dollop of chili relish sharpen the whole affair. And the highlight: ground chickpeas fried into a crispy shell, fluffy inside, punched with garlic. It’s—uncharacteristically—red. “All falafel, when you look inside, is going to be green,” Aqel says. “I’m the only person who does it red on the inside.” The secret? “All the stuff,” he smiles. Likely some of those spices that passed through his stretch of desert centuries ago. Aqel and his partner, co-owner and chef Abood Hasan, both came up through professional kitchens. They met in 2022, when Hasan walked into Al Forno at the UTC Mall as a diner and started asking questions of the manager. Turned out, they were both Jordanian, and Hasan had worked with Aqel’s brother for four years in Amman. After a stint at the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota, Hasan joined Aqel at Al Forno. Soon, the two began plotting their own venture. Janie’s opened in January 2025. Working side by side from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., they feed office workers, students, and, naturally, a faithful Middle Eastern crowd. The dish that Aqel promotes most proudly is chicken shawarma: layers of meat stacked on a vertical spit, shaved to order, then draped over savory rice or wrapped in saj bread with tahini and Arabic pickles. The secret to its succulence? Kiwi fruit—an age-old tenderizer whose enzyme actinidin breaks down muscle fiber fast, keeping meat juicy without turning soft. The rice, folded with peas and carrots, earns its bright yellow honestly. “Saffron, turmeric, curry, seven spice, black pepper… I put all this in my rice,” Aqel says without reticence. The caravan left plenty behind. Recent menu additions include fried catfish and shrimp, Turkish coffee, mint tea and pistachio cake. For an American classic with Levantine swagger, the standout burger laces beef with lamb, served with spice-dusted crinkle-cut fries. A second location is already in the works.“We have the best recipes in the world,” Aqel explains. “Everything we make is good.” Whatever is in that falafel, it’s been a long time coming. SRQ
PRE SERVE PARA DISE
SERVE
Local workingorganizations to preserve our region.
EACH YEAR, THOUSANDS OF NEW RESIDENTS ARE DRAWN TO OUR REGION—FOR GOOD REASON. OFTEN REFERRED TO AS PARADISE, IT OFFERS A QUALITY OF LIFE THAT’S HARD TO BEAT. BUT AS THE POPULATION GROWS, SO DOES THE PRESSURE ON OUR LAND. OPEN SPACES ONCE USED FOR AGRICULTURE, CONSERVATION AND WILDLIFE ARE INCREASINGLY BEING REPLACED BY RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT. THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROTECTING OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT FALLS TO ALL OF US, NOT SOLELY TO ELECTED OFFICIALS. THAT’S WHY THESE LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS ARE WORKING TOGETHER TO PROTECT OUR LAND AND WATER, PRESERVING WHAT MAKES IT A SPECIAL PLACE FOR BOTH PEOPLE AND NATURE.
THis spread Visitors are able to explore Robinson Preserve through a network of nature trails.
“We know that Florida’s a popular place and people are going to continue to move here, but we want the right houses in the right places. We want the right use for the right pieces of land. We’d like to see more infill in areas that are already developed and less destruction on big vast tracks of land. But a little silver lining is that land owners are finally realizing that they need to act soon to protect their land. “ Brooke Langston
BIG WATERS LAND TRUST
Brooke Langston understands the beauty in this land. A native of Fort Myers, she’s traveled extensively, but something, particularly the awe-inspiring natural beauty of the Gulf Coast, kept pulling her back home. As Director of Land Protection at Big Waters Land Trust, Langston works with landowners across a nine-county region from southern Tampa Bay to the northern Everglades, securing land through purchases or conservation easements that prevent future development. Efforts are guided by a conservation plan prioritizing habitat health and water quality. Big Waters Land Trust is a nonprofit dedicated to conserving natural habitats, farmland, waterways and open spaces to protect clean water, wildlife and public access to nature for future generations. Founded more than 20 years ago as the Sarasota Conservation Foundation and later known as the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, the organization rebranded in 2024 to reflect its broader service area across Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties. To date, it has permanently conserved more than 20,000 acres. Recent successes include helping the City of Cape Coral conserve 12 urban lots that provide habitat for burrowing owls and gopher tortoises, protecting 60 acres of historic ranch land in Collier County through a donated conservation easement and partnering with Manatee County to preserve 34 acres near Crane Park. The organization is also “rewilding” four vacant parcels at the Celery Fields with Sarasota Audubon Society and the county. “The plantings just happened a few months ago and we’re already seeing a great influx of birds there— it’s a fantastic birding spot,” Langston says. She adds that the group is fundraising with the City of Sarasota to convert portions of the Bobby Jones golf course into a nature park. Rapid growth in Florida is making conservation more challenging as land values rise and developers offer premium prices. “Ranchers, particularly ranchers out east who have these big tracks of land, say the developers literally knock on their doors with a checkbook and say, ‘How much do you want?’ and some of these ranches have been in the family for up to six generations. They want to keep ranching and we need them to keep ranching, because we don’t want all of our food to come from elsewhere when we can grow some of our own food here,” Langston explains. Still, she emphasizes the organization is not anti-development. “We know that Florida’s a popular place, and people are going to continue to move here, but we want the right houses in the right places. We want the right use for the right pieces of land. We’d like to see more infill in areas that are already developed and less destruction on big, vast tracks of land. But a little silver lining is that land owners are finally realizing that they need to act soon to protect their land.” A key partner is the Sarasota County Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program (ESLPP), which has preserved nearly 40,000 acres. Big Waters is now working to support renewal of the program. “In November 2026, Sarasota County voters are going to be asked to vote again to renew that ballot initiative to tax ourselves to continue to buy sensitive lands in our area to keep our beaches, forests and birds clean and healthy,” Langston says. “It’s an initiative that we are spending lots of time and effort on getting that referendum worded correctly on the ballot and then successfully passed to continue to buy land here in Sarasota.” Big Waters also collaborates with groups including Sarasota Baywatch, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and Sarasota Audubon Society, while building partnerships with small barrier island nonprofits to protect coastal parcels that help buffer storms. Residents can support the work by volunteering in the office, assisting with fieldwork such as pulling weeds and planting native species, or helping at events like the upcoming “Wild About Nature” festival in March.
This spread, clockwise: These local ranchlands, parks and natural areas remain free from development thanks to the efforts of community leaders and conservation organizations.
MANATEE COUNTY MOVES TO PRESERVE RURAL LANDS THROUGH CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIPS
Manatee County’s population is increasing rapidly, and with that comes development pressure on rural lands. For this reason, the county and the State of Florida are teaming up with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) Rural and Family Lands Protection Program to jointly purchase perpetual rural lands protection easements. The initial agreements, unanimously approved by the Manatee BOCC, will permanently protect 1,483 acres of agricultural land from development, including 438 acres at Mossy Island Ranch and 1,045 acres at Thundercloud Ranch—both of which are considered vital to Florida Wildlife. Amidst the increasing development pressure on rural lands, protecting Mossy Island Ranch and Thundercloud Ranch represents a meaningful milestone, allowing agricultural landowners to conserve working landscapes at a regional scale. These lands support agriculture, wildlife and water resources, ensuring growth does not erase the County’s rural roots. The agreements also reflect voter intent, as conservation funding was approved by a 71% majority vote. The preserved properties represent essential “Old Florida” landscapes—wide-open ranchlands, native uplands, wetlands and natural areas that remain free from development. These are working lands that produce locally sourced food while sustaining natural systems, a combination that is increasingly rare as Florida continues to develop. Permanently preserving these properties protects not only environmentally sensitive land, but also a way of life and sense of place. “It’s absolutely a piece of Florida that few people get to see anymore,” said District 1 Commissioner Carol Ann Felts. “I know when our voters voted to increase their own taxes, this is what they envisioned.” The easements maintain the economic viability of agricultural operations while safeguarding ecological value, including wildlife corridors that connect to nearby preserved lands. Large, intact ranches such as these are critical to regional wildlife connectivity, particularly within the Florida Wildlife Corridor, where private ranchlands play a significant role. By adding 1,482 acres to the conservation network, the County advances its goal of increasing conserved lands while protecting water quality and ecosystem function. Manatee County Director of Natural Resources Charlie Hunsicker noted that the partnership aligns with the County’s strategic plan. “In review of the Board’s strategic planning and policies, you asked for maintaining agricultural diversity in Manatee County and promoting agritourism businesses. I’m offering that easements, as many Commissioners have expressed prior, are exactly the tool we can utilize to ensure perpetual agricultural economy in Manatee County,” he said. The County’s contribution is capped at $500,000 for Mossy Island Ranch and $1.5 million for Thundercloud Ranch. FDACS will execute and record the easements and oversee their implementation. Together, these agreements demonstrate that growth and conservation can coexist, preserving Manatee County’s rural character, agricultural legacy and natural resources for generations to come.
This spread: Visitors can get lost in the beauty on the Red Bug Slough Preserve Nature Trail.
SARASOTA COUNTY’S ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE LANDS PROTECTION PROGRAM
The protected lands of Sarasota County are protected for a reason. These areas provide habitats for species such as gopher tortoises, Florida scrub-jays, eastern indigo snakes, crested caracara and West Indian manatees. These sites also safeguard rare native communities, support wildlife corridors, protect watersheds and water quality and recharge the aquifer, which serves as a critical, natural reservoir. Sarasota County’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program (ESLPP) is a voter-approved and taxpayer-funded program intended to acquire and protect native habitat, listed species and water resources. The ESLPP and its sister program, the Neighborhood Parkland Acquisition Program, operate together under the Land Acquisition and Management Program (LAMP), allowing land to be preserved for conservation or developed for public recreation. In October 2025, LAMP completed its first joint acquisition using both funding sources to conserve land along the Wild and Scenic Myakka River while adding nature-based recreation opportunities such as camping, fishing and kayaking. To date, ESLPP has protected 101 properties totaling nearly 42,000 acres through purchases and conservation easements. The 100th acquisition—the former Camp Venice RV Resort, now Snook Haven Campground—adds 20 acres along the Myakka River in Venice and is planned to reopen as an upgraded riverfront campground. The Neighborhood Parkland Acquisition Program has acquired 31 properties totaling 143 acres, including beach and water access parks and trailheads. Looking ahead, the planned Hawkins Ranch Conservation Easement—partnering with state and regional agencies—will protect more than 3,000 acres of native habitat and ranchland between the I-75 corridor and Myakka River State Park, with continued emphasis on the Myakka River corridor and watershed. Sarasota County has also partnered with nonprofit land trusts and state agencies to leverage funding, jointly protecting thousands of acres through purchases, easements and grants. “The Land Acquisition and Management Program is a great Sarasota County success story. It’s truly driven by community support and a shared commitment to preserving the natural spaces that define our quality of life. LAMP represents decades of hard work and commitment from community members,” explains Sarasota Public Information Officer Sara Nealeigh. “Because of that support, Sarasota County is able to protect environmentally sensitive lands and create parks and access points that residents and visitors will enjoy for generations. It will leave an indelible legacy of protected lands for the benefit of the environment and our residents.” Those interested in helping or learning more can do so through free programs and volunteer opportunities offered by the county and UF/IFAS Extension, serve on advisory boards that review land nominations or submit nominations directly to the county. SRQ
Below, left to right: Brooke Langston marvels in the surroundings at Manasota Scrub Preserve. Brie Ondercin of Sarasota County Parks with co-worker at Red Bug Slough Preserve.
YOUR GUIDE TO GIVING OPPORTUNITIES BOOSTS THE IMPACT FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS WORKING IN OUR REGION. BECOME A PART OF THE REGIONAL PHILANTHROPIC STORY BY FULFILLING THEIR GIVING BACK WISH LISTS.
ALL FAITHS FOOD BANK | BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF THE SUN COAST | BIG CAT HABITAT | BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SARASOTA AND DESOTO COUNTIES
CAT DEPOT | CENTERSTONE | CHILDREN FIRST FAMILY PROMISE OF SOUTH SARASOTA | FLORIDA WEST COAST AVIAN SOCIETY INC. | HUMANE SOCIETY OF SARASOTA COUNTY | IMPACT100 SRQ | MANATEE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | MANATEE COUNTY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | MOTE MARINE LABORATORY
NEW COLLEGE FOUNDATION | PARENTING MATTERS ROWLETT ACADEMY | SAMARITAN COUNSELING SERVICES OF THE GULF COAST | SARASOTA PARROT CONSERVATORY SARASOTA PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION SARASOTA POLICE FOUNDATION | SAVE OUR SEABIRDS TAKE STOCK IN CHILDREN MANATEE COUNTY
THE BISHOP MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND NATURE
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SARASOTA COUNTY YMCA OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA
Centerstone
EVERY DAY, PEOPLE AROUND US ARE QUIETLY CARRYING THE WEIGHT OF MENTAL HEALTH OR SUBSTANCE USE CHALLENGES. It can take tremendous courage to ask for support—and when they do, Centerstone is here to meet them with compassion, respect, and real pathways to recovery. FOR NEARLY SEVEN DECADES, Centerstone has been part of the fabric of Florida’s communities, delivering care that changes lives. Our services span from outpatient counseling to inpatient treatment at our Behavioral Hospital and Addiction Center and community-based programs. Together, these resources help children, teens, adults, and older adults find stability, connection, and hope. Each year, more than 250,000 people nationwide turn to Centerstone, including over 15,000 individuals and families right here in Florida. With locations throughout Manatee and Sarasota counties and across southwest Florida, our commitment to those we serve is deep and enduring. IF YOU’D LIKE TO MAKE A DIRECT IMPACT TODAY, we invite you to explore our Wish List, which highlights items that immediately support our clients’ wellbeing. YOU CAN ALSO UPLIFT OUR MISSION through two signature annual events. On May 16, we’ll host the 2nd Annual Fairway to Recovery Golf Tournament, created by the father of a former client and held at Heritage Oaks Golf & Country Club. Proceeds strengthen our recovery programs. Then, on September 19, join us for the 24th Annual Life;Story Run and Walk for Suicide Prevention at Nathan Benderson Park. WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE. Together, we can open doors to healing—and help even more people find their way forward.
Our Wish List
$2,500 allows access to mental health/addiction care for individuals and families
$1,000 serves meals for patients in our behavioral hospital and addictions center
$500 provides medication for patients with little or no resources
$100 helps to provide art or play therapy supplies for a child recovering from trauma or abuse
FAMILY PROMISE OF SOUTH SARASOTA COUNTY is dedicated to providing housing support to children and their families, ensuring every child has a safe, stable place to call home. We believe that housing is the foundation for a child’s success in school, emotional well-being, and longterm stability—and our work is centered on breaking the cycle of homelessness for families in our community. THROUGH OUR BRIDGE HOUSING PROGRAM, families with children experiencing homelessness receive temporary shelter alongside intensive case management, financial coaching, and employment support to help them regain independence. Our Open Doors program provides rent and move-in assistance to prevent families from becoming homeless in the first place, while also offering ongoing support to promote long-term stability. Through housing subsidies, the Pathways Home program removes financial barriers and helps families with minor children secure safe, stable homes. FPSSC ADDRESSES CRITICAL NEEDS IN OUR COMMUNITY by combining immediate housing assistance with wrap-around services that focus on economic mobility. We work closely with each family to build sustainable plans that increase income, reduce barriers, and support children in maintaining consistent school a endance and performance. AS WE CONTINUE TO GROW TO MEET THE INCREASING DEMAND FOR SERVICES, WE ARE ALSO INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE. Expanding our programs requires strengthening our operational capacity, increasing financial reserves, and maintaining the properties that house our families. From major repairs to long-term capital improvements such as roofs and air conditioning systems, these investments ensure we can continue providing safe, reliable housing for years to come. COMMUNITY SUPPORT MAKES THIS WORK POSSIBLE helping us create brighter futures for children and families across South Sarasota County.
Our Wish List
Growth & Sustainability
Support our capital campaign, daily operations, and growing reserve fund to ensure we can expand our impact and serve more families sustainably.
Housing & Infrastructure
Invest in our capital maintenance fund to keep our homes safe and reliable through essential repairs and long-term improvements like roofs and HVAC systems.
Direct Family Support
Provide immediate relief to families through gift cards for essentials and by volunteering your time to support and uplift those on their journey to stability.
WHEN WILLIE THE COCKATIEL WAS RESCUED BY THE FLORIDA WEST COAST AVIAN SOCIETY (FWCAS) in 2007, he was 17 years old, cage-bound, and paralyzed by fear. To the world, he was another surrendered pet. To Willie, his world had sha ered. Parrots can possess the emotional complexity of a human toddler, yet they’re o en discarded when "life changes.” Because many species live over 50 years, they frequently outlive their homes, cycling through owners and repeated displacement. For parrots, a human owner isn’t just a keeper; they are their "flock." When that bond is severed, parrots experience a silent grief, o en turning to self-harm. Parrots are intelligent enough to feel terror, but unable to understand their abandonment. WILLIE DIDN’T JUST LOSE HIS FAMILY; HE LOST HIS SENSE OF SECURITY. Today, however, at an incredible 36 years old, Willie is a testament to the power of trust. He no longer fears hands; he asks for baths and "purrs" during head scritches, returning the love he was finally given. AT FWCAS, A 501(C)(3) RESCUE SERVING SARASOTA AND MANATEE COUNTIES, abandonment isn’t the end. FWCAS provides the specialized rehabilitation and stable environment that parrots deserve. We bridge the gap between heartbreak and healing. Because every bird has unique needs, we offer tailored alternatives to traditional sanctuary placement, including:
• Individualized medical care by specialized veterinarians.
• Nutritious diets far beyond unhealthy seed.
• Toys for activities such as chewing and foraging.
• And most importantly: A loving forever home.
WHILE SOCIETY OPENS ITS HEART TO DOGS AND CATS, PARROTS ARE OFTEN THE FORGOTTEN SOULS OF PET RESCUE. They receive zero funding from national or county organizations; to many, they are invisible. For these brilliant, sensitive creatures, your private kindness isn’t just a gi —it is their only lifeline. SUPPORT THE FWCAS TODAY: PARROT LIVES DEPEND ON YOUR GENEROSITY.
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Florida West Coast Avian Society Inc.
Our Wish List
Critical Medical Fund:
Donations for life-saving surgeries, bloodwork, and diagnostic X-rays.
Digital Outreach: Website development help to feature adoptable birds, success stories, and upcoming events. Assistance with current platforms such as YouTube, X, and Instagram.
Education Sponsorship: Funding for our Parrot Symposium to teach proper care, behavior, and conservation to current and prospective parrot owners. Compassionate Foster Homes: Parrot-friendly homes to provide stable environments for traumatized parrots. We provide all food, supplies, and training.
Veterinary Mentorship: Active or retired veterinarians to assist with volunteer training and/or serve as guest speakers.
Mote Marine Laboratory
FOR OVER SEVEN DECADES, MOTE MARINE LABORATORY & AQUARIUM has advanced marine science, conservation, and education to protect our oceans and the lives and livelihoods that depend on them. Our mission is driven by a simple truth: the challenges our oceans face are increasing, and meaningful change requires all of us working together. FROM RESTORING CORAL REEFS AND SEAGRASS MEADOWS to pioneering innovative solutions that mitigate impacts from harmful algal blooms like Florida red tide, Mote scientists lead cu ing-edge research with real-world impact. Our teams explore new frontiers in marine biomedical science, studying naturally occurring marine compounds that may help identify potential therapies for cancer. We also work to restore, wild fisheries and increase global food security by advancing land-based, recirculating aquaculture technology and conducting breakthrough research in sustainable seafood development. MOTE’S MISSION REACHES FAR BEYOND THE LAB. Our Stranding Investigations Program responds to sick and injured marine animals, providing lifesaving care and critical data that improve species protection. Through dynamic education programs for learners of all ages, we translate complex science into meaningful, accessible experiences that inspire future ocean leaders. SINCE 1955, when pioneering scientist Dr. Eugenie Clark received early support from Anne and William Vanderbilt and later transformational backing from William R. Mote, our organization has been shaped by visionary philanthropists who believe in the power of marine science. Today, with more than 38 diverse research programs and centers of excellence across a global enterprise, Mote continues to push the boundaries of discovery to address the ocean’s most urgent challenges. BY SUPPORTING MOTE, you join a legacy of individuals who are driving lasting, positive impact for our blue planet. Together, we can safeguard marine ecosystems, protect threatened species, and forge a sustainable future for our oceans and our community.
Our Wish List
YOU CAN HELP US:
Nurture the talents of early career scientists whose passion for the oceans is fueling innovative scientific research
Mitigate the impacts of Florida red tide through the development of cutting-edge technologies
Restore seagrass meadows and coastal habitat by identifying and propagating resilient seagrasses
Protect and conserve keystone species like sharks that sustain ocean ecosystems
Increase access to marine STEM education for local students in the community and at Mote Science Education Aquarium
APIEKARZ@MOTE.ORG MOTE.ORG/SUPPORT INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, AND TIKTOK: @MOTEMARINELAB LINKEDIN: MOTE-MARINE-LABORATORY
New College Foundation
NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA EXISTS TO PROVIDE A PERSONALIZED, INTELLECTUALLY RIGOROUS EDUCATION
that empowers students to think critically, act boldly, and create meaningful change. As Florida’s public honors college, New College is nationally recognized for academic innovation, fearless dialogue, and transformative student experiences. Founded in Sarasota in 1960, the College has deep roots in the local community and a growing reputation across the state and nation. It is ranked the #1 public liberal arts college in the United States by Washington Monthly—a distinction it has held for three consecutive years —and is also the top liberal arts college in Florida, reflecting leadership in civic engagement, academic freedom, and student success. The College also holds national recognition from The Princeton Review, including: Best U.S. Public College for Value & Small Size (#1 of 391); Best Small Public College in the South (#1 of 109); and Top Public College with Lowest In-State Tuition (#1 of 19). The New College Foundation serves as the philanthropic partner of the College, advancing this mission through strategic investment and community support. Through donor partnership, the Foundation provides scholarships that open doors for talented students, fuels faculty research and academic innovation, expands athletics, arts, and student life programming, and creates life-changing experiential learning opportunities. TOGETHER, NEW COLLEGE AND ITS FOUNDATION ADDRESS CRITICAL COMMUNITY NEEDS by preparing thoughtful, engaged graduates who contribute to the Gulf Coast and beyond—strengthening the region’s intellectual, cultural, and economic vitality while shaping the next generation of leaders.
Our Wish List
Annual Donations
Join alumni, parents, and friends in supporting New College’s most immediate needs, including scholarships, career services, faculty research, athletics, and student life initiatives.
Event Sponsorships
Sponsor signature events such as the Clambake, Golf Tournament, and Socratic Stage to bring the community together while generating critical funds for students and programs.
Endowed Gi s
Establish a lasting legacy through endowed scholarships, faculty chairs, or program funds that provide sustainable, long-term support for generations of students.
FOUNDATION@NCF.EDU
INSTAGRAM: NEWCOLLEGEFOUNDATION
FACEBOOK: NEWCOLLEGEFOUNDATION
Rowlett Academy
ROWLETT ACADEMY K–8 HAS SERVED MANATEE COUNTY FAMILIES SINCE 2000, and as a highperforming, tuition-free public charter school since 2014. At Rowle , we focus on developing creative, confident leaders who excel in academics, the arts, and communication. ACROSS OUR K–8 MODEL, students benefit from a student-centered experience that blends strong academic with the arts, technology, and leadership. Beginning in elementary school, students receive Spanish instruction along with expanded arts opportunities such as drama, dance, and theater. From elementary through middle school, students engage in award-winning film and technology programs, including producing daily, live, student-run morning news broadcasts on both campuses. Middle school students extend these skills by competing in national media competitions such as the Student Television Network and earning recognition at the All American High School Film Festival. Advanced coursework, including high school credit opportunities at the middle school level, ensures students are challenged and prepared for what comes next. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IS WOVEN INTO THE SCHOOL DAY through the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Young People. Elementary students build leadership skills through initiatives like DEAL Time (Drop Everything And Lead) and Student Lighthouse Team, recognizing community heroes and leading campus efforts. These opportunities continue in middle school through Student Council, National Junior Honor Society, Kiwanis Builders Club, and a competitive speech and debate program. A wide range of middle school athletic offerings further supports teamwork and discipline. WE SUPPORT BOTH STUDENTS AND FAMILIES by addressing critical community needs. Through free enrichment programs and initiatives like Families Helping Families, we provide food and resources to those facing insecurity. With continued community support, we can expand these opportunities, reach more families, and ensure every child has access to experiences that shape confident, capable leaders. Your support directly fuels these programs and creates lasting impact for students and our community.
Our Wish List
Middle Campus News Studio update
Middle Campus Science Lab improvements
Elementary Campus Playground refresh
Elementary Campus Office portable
Donor-directed projects aligned to school needs: Naming opportunities available to create a lasting legacy!
QUESTIONS?
REACH OUT TO OUR MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR, ERICA LEVEY. LEVEYE@ROWLETTACADEMY.ORG ROWLETTACADEMY.ORG
ELEMENTARY CAMPUS: 3500 9TH STREET EAST BRADENTON, FL 34208 PHONE: 941-708-6100
FACEBOOK.COM/ROWLETTACADEMY
MIDDLE CAMPUS:
400 30TH AVENUE WEST BRADENTON, FL 34205 PHONE: 941-462-4001
FACEBOOK.COM/ROWLETTMIDDLEACADEMY
SINCE JANUARY 2013 SARASOTA PARROT CONSERVATORY HAS BEEN GIVING RELINQUISHED PARROTS A FOREVER HOME. The large number of parrots that need a home in South Florida is a problem yet many people are only aware of dog and cat rescues. We regularly hold community events bringing awareness to this community issue. PARROTS LIVE UP TO 80 YEARS OLD so on average they will live in seven homes during their lives. We do not rehome parrots but give them a forever home giving families the peace of mind that their beloved parrot they gave security to for decades will not go from home to home. GIVING RELINQUISHED PARROTS A HOME IN A NATURAL SETTING IS ONLY PART OF WHAT WE DO. Many parrots have been socialized and require more stimulation which makes them great candidates for our hallmark programs. Our community outreach programs find us bringing joy with our parrots to senior assisted living facilities with our program “We’re All Young at Heart”, conducting avian therapy for combat veterans and sexual assault survivors with our program “Freedom to Fly”, and community events educating the public about responsible parrot care. WE RESPONSIBLY WORK WITH OTHER PARROT RESCUES making sure those looking to surrender a parrot, adopt a parrot or needing transportation for medical emergencies get their requirements met. WE ALSO WORK WITH THE COMMUNITY offering volunteer opportunities to help students meet requirements for Bright Futures to a end college, those in the court system needing volunteer hours, and those interested in making a difference. Our program “A Place to Perch” teaches our youth life skills like carpentry, landscaping, animal care, concrete work, painting and proper use of many types of tools. FINALLY, WE OFFER BOARDING SERVICES, daily tours and parrot wing and nail clipping.
Sarasota Parrot Conservatory Inc.
Our Wish List
$1500.00
Buys all materials to build an aviary for parrots
$500.00
Buys feed, fruits/vegetables for two weeks
$200.00
Buys industrial weatherproof fans for aviaries
$100.00
Helps with our medical vet expenses
$50.00
Buys enrichment toys necessary for health Our Mission
To rescue, rehabilitate and care for parrots; To inspire and nurture the human spirit by connecting people with parrots and each other in joyful, immersive ways.
Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation
THE SARASOTA PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION shapes moments that upli hearts and strengthen our community by advancing the power of the arts to educate, connect, and inspire through impactful and interactive learning experiences. SINCE 1987, THE FOUNDATION HAS INVESTED MORE THAN $18 MILLION into arts education programs at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, bringing world-class performances, teaching artists, and creative opportunities to thousands of students and families annually. THROUGH TEACHER WORKSHOPS, schooltime performances, classroom residencies, family nights, and wellness programming, the Foundation in partnership with the Van Wezel Education Department reaches 40,000 participants annually - students, educators, families, and lifelong learners. These programs are made possible through private support, which helps the Foundation bring art, culture and inspiration to all. IN 2022, THE FOUNDATION EXPANDED ITS MISSION, working with the City of Sarasota through a public-private partnership to design a new Performing Arts Center that embodies resilience, world-class acoustics, and community vision at the heart of Sarasota. THE NEW CENTER WILL BE ABLE TO ACCOMMODATE larger productions, a racting new world-class performances to the area and building on the rich history of Florida’s Cultural Coast. The Center will serve as a gathering place for generations to come, ensuring Sarasota remains a destination for the best in music, theater, dance, and more.
Our Mission
To create and sustain a vibrant performing arts center, advance education, and enrich communities by inspiring minds through the power of the arts.
MISSION MOMENT
This past year, thousands of local students experienced live theater at the Van Wezel through our Schooltime Performances, many for the very fi rst time. For one young student, the experience was transformative: “I felt like the show was made for me. I never thought I’d see something like this in real life.”
That moment of wonder is why we exist: to ensure that every child and every neighbor have access to the joy, inspiration, and connection that only the arts can provide.
SARASOTA PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION 201 COCOANUT AVE., SARASOTA, FL 34236
THE SARASOTA POLICE FOUNDATION plays a vital role in strengthening the connection between law enforcement and the community it serves. As a nonprofit organization, the Foundation provides critical funding and support for initiatives, equipment, and programs that enhance the capabilities of local officers and help them serve at the highest level. THROUGH COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS AND FUNDRAISING EFFORTS, the Foundation helps advance public safety by supporting specialized equipment, advanced training, and innovative technology for the Sarasota Police Department. These resources allow officers to respond more effectively to evolving challenges and be er protect the residents and visitors of Sarasota. BEYOND EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING, the Foundation is deeply commi ed to the well-being of officers and their families. It provides emergency financial assistance during times of hardship and supports programs that promote officer wellness, resilience, and mental health. In doing so, it ensures those who protect the community are also cared for in meaningful and lasting ways. THE FOUNDATION ALSO INVESTS IN THE FUTURE by supporting youth engagement initiatives and community outreach programs that build trust and foster positive relationships between law enforcement and the community. From local events to hands-on interactions, these efforts help create a safer, more connected Sarasota. AT ITS CORE, THE SARASOTA POLICE FOUNDATION IS ABOUT PARTNERSHIP. Bringing together citizens, businesses, and law enforcement to make a lasting impact. Through generosity and community involvement, it continues to elevate public safety and support those who serve with dedication and integrity every day.
Our Wish List
The Sarasota Police Foundation’s current wish list includes funding to support our retired K9 heroes, helping cover essential needs such as boarding expenses, specialized food, and wellness support after years of dedicated service to our community. These loyal partners often face significant health expenses in retirement. Additionally, we are seeking contributions to grow our Emergency Relief Fund, which provides immediate fi nancial assistance to officers and their families during unexpected hardships, including medical emergencies, natural disasters, or critical incidents. These critical funds ensure we can respond quickly and provide meaningful support when it is needed most.
SARASOTA POLICE FOUNDATION PO BOX 10 | SARASOTA, FL 34230 ANDREA@SRQPF.ORG 941-468-1611
INSTAGRAM: SRQPOLICEFDTN FACEBOOK: SARASOTA POLICE FOUNDATION
YMCA of Southwest Florida
FOR OVER 59 YEARS, YMCA OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA HAS STRENGTHENED COMMUNITIES by connecting people to their potential, purpose and each other. Serving Manatee, Sarasota, Charlo e, Lee, DeSoto, Hendry and Glades counties, the Y operates ten facilities, two charter middle schools, five early learning academies and various summer camps and a erschool programs. THE MISSION OF THE YMCA is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all. As an inclusive, cause-driven organization, the Y is commi ed to youth development, healthy living and social responsibility. BY UNITING PEOPLE FROM DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS AND GENERATIONS, we ensure access to opportunities, relationships and resources for all to learn, grow and thrive. GIVING BACK AND SUPPORTING OUR NEIGHBORS is at the heart of the Y. Meeting the emerging needs of our communities is where we are o en needed most. Our programs and services focus on areas of impact that help people achieve their goals and strengthen communities. From reducing senior isolation and fighting food insecurity to promoting health initiatives, preventing drowning, supporting grade-level reading and responding to disasters, the Y is commi ed to providing essential support where it’s needed most. WE CREATE OPPORTUNITIES for individuals to improve their lives and their communities. By empowering young people, enhancing well-being and inspiring action, the Y drives meaningful change across Southwest Florida. WITH A STRONG PRESENCE AND MEANINGFUL PARTNERSHIPS, the Y doesn’t just promise change — we deliver lasting impact. Partner with us and make a difference that endures.
Our
Wish List
Send a Kid to Camp: Support YMCA Summer Camp and give children the Best Summer Ever, creating lifelong memories.
Prepare Children for Kindergarten: Support YMCA Early Learning programs to equip kids with essential school readiness skills.
Create Healthy Families & Communities: Support YMCA Health Innovations for life-changing programs that promote well-being, fi ght chronic disease, and empower healthier lives.
Prevent Childhood Drowning: Support YMCA water safety and swim lessons, helping children develop life-saving skills to reduce drowning risks.
Fight Food Insecurity with the YMCA: Support the YMCA Food Program to ensure children and families have access to nutritious meals. YMCA OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA 200 NOKOMIS AVE. S., 3RD FLOOR VENICE, FL 34285 YMCASWFL.ORG | GIVE@YMCASWFL.ORG
All Faiths Food Bank
SUMMERTIME SHOULD BE CAREFREE FOR KIDS, but when school cafeterias close, thousands of children across Sarasota and DeSoto counties lose reliable access to meals. Through its Campaign Against Summer Hunger, All Faiths Food Bank works with local schools, non-profits and community partners to provide nutritious food for children all summer. Community support makes this effort possible. A gi today helps fund programs that keep kids nourished while school is out. Join All Faiths in ending summer hunger – and your gi will be matched through May 15! Together, we can ensure every child has the food they need. Our Mission
Together with our partners, we provide healthy solutions to end hunger in our community.
Make a donation A end an upcoming event Volunteer
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Sun Coast
BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF THE SUN COAST creates and supports one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. Through its mentoring program, young people (“Li les”) are matched with screened, trained, and professionally supported volunteer mentors (“Bigs”) who provide guidance, encouragement, and consistency. These relationships help youth stay engaged in school, make positive choices, graduate high school, and build a path toward a self-sufficient future.
LIFE AND CAREER READINESS is woven throughout the mentoring experience, including financial literacy, wellness and resiliency, career exploration, workplace mentoring, scholarship and higher education preparation, and practical skills like résumé development and mock interviews. The organization also partners closely with families, connecting them with community resources to ensure every child has the support needed to reach their full potential.
BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF THE SUN COAST 5731 ROSIN WAY, SARASOTA, FL 34233 BBBSSUN.ORG | FB: FACEBOOK.COM/BBBSSUN |IG: NSTAGRAM.COM/BBBSSUN
Our Wish
List
Volunteer mentors for youth currently on our waiting list.
College readiness laundry baskets with essentials like Twin XL sheets, detergent, and toiletries.
Walmart gi cards to help Littles purchase attire for college visits and job interviews.
Big Cat Habitat
BIG CAT HABITAT CONSERVATION AND EDUCATION CENTER provides a safe, loving and permanent home to over 300 animals spanning more than 60 species including lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, birds and more. We welcome guests from around the world to visit, encounter, experience and fall in love with our animals year-round. We believe that educating our guests on the importance of conservation and species preservation can cultivate a deeper understanding of the vital connection between humans and animals. We encourage everyone to help save animals from extinction and inspire community action for a be er tomorrow with EDUCATION, CONSERVATION AND CONNECTION. Through our outreach team we share our knowledge and passion for animals in the community at schools, libraries, festivals and events.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties
AT BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SARASOTA AND DESOTO COUNTIES, thousands of youth are provided a safe place to learn, grow, and thrive across six Club locations and two counties. Through programs in leadership development, academic success, career readiness, and health and wellness, we are shaping the next generation of community leaders. By addressing real needs in our community, from mental health to workforce readiness, the Club ensures every young person has access to the support and opportunities they need to succeed. With your help, we can empower Club kids to become the leaders of tomorrow. Call to schedule a private Club tour and learn how you can join us in making an impact.
Our Wish List
Host An Event amongst the original party animals and have a wild birthday party, holiday party, rehearsal dinner, corporate or milestone event!
Become A Member and be a part of the BCH family!
Donate towards animal care, habitat construction and park improvements.
Volunteer opportunities in gardening, educational tours, construction and more.
Our Wish List
$1,000 ensures all members have academic support throughout the year.
$500 empowers teens to be active members of their community.
$250 enlists behavioral health professionals to provide wellness sessions to youth who need us most.
$100 helps provide healthy snacks to fuel great futures.
Cat Depot
A CAT-FOCUSED MISSION Cat Depot is a feline-only rescue, adoption, and education center dedicated exclusively to helping cats and ki ens. Our focused mission allows us to tailor care and programs to meet cats’ unique needs.
EVERY DAY, HOMELESS AND ABANDONED CATS ARE GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE AT CAT DEPOT through urgent rescue, compassionate veterinary care, and loving adoptions.
EACH YEAR WE:
• Rescue and rehome 1,300 cats and ki ens
• Treat 2,700 feline patients through our Cat Care Clinic
• Provide vital spay/neuter services and community cat support
• Keep hundreds of families together through our food bank and safety net programs
• Build a more informed and compassionate community for cats through humane education and outreach
• Wet and dry cat and kitten food • Clumping and non-clumping cat litter
• Hard-sided cat carriers
• Cat toys and treats
• Kitten nursing supplies
Manatee County Habitat for Humanity
MANATEE COUNTY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY’S MISSION is to bring people together to build homes, communities and hope. Our vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. We partner with hardworking local families to construct safe, decent homes they can purchase with an affordable mortgage, creating long-term generational impact. As housing costs continue to rise in our community, we are scaling our mission to build 15 homes annually to meet the growing need. Our newest development, King’s Cross Place, will bring 27 affordable homes to Manatee County, expanding opportunities for families to thrive. Through volunteer engagement, donor support, and special campaigns and initiatives like Women Build, Advancing Black Homeownership, and Faith Build, we are addressing the affordable housing crisis headon, creating not just homes, but stronger, more resilient communities.
Our Wish List
Sponsors and corporate partners to help fund the construction of affordable homes
Volunteers of all skill levels, no experience needed, just a willingness to serve ReStore donations and shoppers to support our mission and keep materials out of landfi lls
Our Wish List
Despite how essential this work is, wildlife conservation receives less than 1% of charitable giving. With your support, we can keep showing up for these birds— and protect the systems we all depend on.
Save Our Seabirds
SAVE OUR SEABIRDS RESCUES AND REHABILITATES SICK AND INJURED WILD BIRDS, protecting species that keep our ecosystems in balance. Birds pollinate plants, control pests, and serve as early indicators of environmental health. When they struggle, it signals deeper issues that ultimately impact us all. OUR DEDICATED TEAM responds to 5,000+ calls about distressed birds annually, providing critical care through our on-site hospital and giving birds a second chance at life. We also believe connection drives conservation. Our free-admission Bird Walk is home to nearly 100 non-releasable resident birds whose stories advocate for their wild counterparts, helping people be er understand and care about wildlife. Through free educational programs and community outreach, we make learning accessible for all ages.
Take Stock in Children - Manatee County, Inc.
AT TAKE STOCK IN CHILDREN OF MANATEE COUNTY, we transform the lives of students facing economic hardship by providing the tools, guidance, and support they need to thrive. Our scholarship programs do more than cover tuition, they create pathways to opportunity, paired with mentorship that lasts from middle school through graduation. Dedicated mentors guide students through challenges, celebrate achievements, and help them build the confidence to pursue their dreams. BEYOND FINANCIAL SUPPORT, we connect students to critical resources, including mental health services, and our Beyond Tuition initiative ensures alumni continue receiving assistance for housing, supplies, and other needs while in college. BY INVESTING IN EACH STUDENT’S GROWTH, we nurture academic success, personal development, and a stronger community for all. DONATE AT BIT.LY/TSICMDONATE.
Mission Moment
When Jose faced family separation and housing instability, Take Stock Manatee’s mentorship, coaching, and scholarships kept him on track. Now pursuing a nursing degree, he plans to give back to the community that supported him, showing how our program empowers students to overcome adversity and achieve their dreams.
giving coast
FROM NURSERY SCHOOL
STUDENT TO CHAIR OF THE BOARD
Michael Suarez has come full circle with Children First. Barbie Heit
BEHIND EVERY STRONG MAN IS A STRONG FAMILY. Sarasota native Michael Suarez attributes his life successes to his supportive upbringing. He was fortunate to be raised by his mother and both sets of grandparents, noting that his maternal grandfather, Alfred Houston Sr., and his paternal grandmother, Allease Suarez, were particularly influential, serving as essential advisors during challenging times. He says that hearing about the difficulties his grandparents faced often provided him with perspective, making his own problems seem minor by comparison. He believes that their guidance and life experience were fundamental to his current achievements: “Without their wisdom and experience,” he says, “I am not sure if you would be interviewing me right now.”
Suarez has been married for over forty two years. “She continues to help me make the rough places smooth in our lives,” he says of his wife, Lavender. The two feel blessed to have raised their family in Sarasota, as well.
As a young boy, Suarez attended the Newtown Day Nursery, later named the Helen Payne Day Nursery, now merged with Children First. His mother was a single mother of three who needed a place to care for her children while she worked. “The caring staff there, much like the current staff at Children First, nurtured me and showed me what true caring and making a difference look and feel like. I will forever be grateful to them,” he says.
Suarez spent a total of 37 years in local government and retired as the Executive Director of Emergency Services. He joined the City of Sarasota Fire Department in 1982 and was a part of the consolidation with Sarasota County in 1996. “I worked my way through the ranks, becoming the first African American to hold the ranks of Lieutenant, Captain, Battalion Chief, Assistant Chief, Chief and Executive Director,” he shares. “Those accomplishments are important but they are not as important to me as the legacy of making a difference by using my position to help others attain their goals. It’s funny, before becoming the Executive Director, my grandfather would tell the world, ‘My grandson is going to run that place one day,’ but sadly, he passed away before I got there. My grandmother did see me get there. Her advice to me was always, ‘The good lord chose you for a reason, so go in there and make us all proud. I tried and I sure hope that I made them proud.”
Returning to his roots—but this time in a leadership role—Suarez now serves as the Board Chair of Children First. A longtime friend of CEO Phillip Tavill, he was asked to join the Board before his retirement, but he
felt he didn’t have the time to dedicate. “If you know Mr. Tavill like I do, you know that he does not give up easily,” Suarez says. “I think that the ink had not dried on my retirement papers before he invited me to lunch. He told me that he understood that I had some time on my schedule. I accepted and did the paperwork to join the Board. It was one of the best decisions that I have ever made.”
Suarez believes that the most important thing that any one person can do in their lifetime is to share their knowledge and experience with others. In addition to serving as Board Chair of Children First, where they serve birth to 5 years, Suarez is the President of the Alpha Phi Alpha Foundation of Manasota, Inc., an organization that works with young men ages nine to 19 on issues that they face in today’s society. In addition, they provide scholarships to the young men as they head off to college. “In my life, I have had many achievements and I am proud of that. However, it comes in second place when it comes to the things that we accomplish with young people. Nothing feels better than a young person telling you that what you have helped them to do has created a better life for them and their families,” he says.
A fan of the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., there are a couple of quotes that resonate with Suarez: The first is “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” The second is “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
Looking back, Suarez is proud of the times that he was able to help young people realize their full potential. “Without using names, there were a few young men and women who wanted to challenge themselves to take promotional exams or move into a different
area of public safety. I was always eager to chat with them to make them understand that nothing is holding them back but fear. They had the knowledge, they had an idea of what they wanted to accomplish, and they needed someone to confirm that. I was really proud when that person was me. What is even more important, even post-retirement I still receive calls for advice. I received a couple of letters from young firefighters thanking me for the difference that I made in their lives. I still have them and they are precious to me,” he adds.
For young people looking to become philanthropically involved, Suares advises that they first find something that they have a passion for. That way it never seems like work; it always seems like a reward. “As an example, at Children First, we are in the middle of a campaign to build a new building to serve more kids. You can’t imagine how it feels to be the Chair of this organization during this process,” he says. “This year, we are also celebrating 65 years of serving this community. The kid from the Newtown Day Nursery is now the Chair of the Board of the organization that he started with. Talk about coming full circle!”
To be honored with the Good Hero award was a humbling experience and an extremely emotional one for Suarez. It reminded him that he was doing the things required of him in life. I live by the scripture ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ I really appreciate you all and I am forever grateful that you noticed my work in this community,” he says. SRQ Michael Suarez was honored as a Good Hero by SRQ Magazine in December 2025.
ENGAGING READERS THROUGH STORYTELLING WITH REGIONAL PHILANTHROPY LEADERS
In Conversation
TRENDS IN SERVING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN SARASOTA AND MANATEE COUNTIES
ON SERVING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN THE REGION
PHILIP TAVILL serves as President & CEO of Children First, Sarasota County’s exclusive Head Start provider, where he is celebrating 30 years of leading the organization. He obtained a baccalaureate degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1989. He returned to Sarasota and was appointed Executive Director of the Loveland Center in 1991. Subsequently, at Case Western Reserve University, he earned a Master of Nonprofit Organizations from the Weatherhead School of Management and a Master of Science in Social Administration from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. Mr. Tavill has worked in the human services field in both direct service and management capacities for more than 36 years. In 2022, Mr. Tavill received the Mandel School Alumni Association Nonprofit Leadership Award. Most recently, he was recognized with the Billy J. McCain, Sr. Excellence in Community Service Award from the National Head Start Association and the Sargent Shriver Community Service Award from the Florida Head Start Association for his impact in elevating excellence across the Head Start community.
THIS YEAR MARKS TWO REMARKABLE MILESTONES—65 YEARS OF SERVICE FOR CHILDREN FIRST AND YOUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY AS CEO. WHAT DOES THIS MOMENT MEAN TO YOU PERSONALLY, AND WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THE ENDURING MISSION OF THE ORGANIZATION?
PHILIP TAVILL
I have this incredible opportunity to do such important and significant work with such an incredible agency and that is truly a gift for me. I believe that our celebration of a 65th anniversary is rooted in several things. The first one is that we are just extraordinarily true to mission. Everything that we do is through the mission lens. That’s from governance, to our staff, to our volunteers, to our community partners and to our donors. I have a little plaque on the windowsill behind me that says, “Many hands
make light work.” And it’s very clear that while I’m so fortunate to celebrate my 30th as the head of the organization, it’s many hands making light work of what, on some days, is incredibly heavy lifting.
And we’ve just been so consistent. We’ve been so persistent. We are all about the mission. We’re all about partnerships. When people choose to be involved with Children First, it really is with their whole heart. That means so much in terms of why we’ve had this longevity.
LOOKING
BACK OVER SIX AND A HALF DECADES, HOW HAS CHILDREN FIRST EVOLVED?
TAVILL I’ll start with what has stayed the same. Very simply, we began with a group of visionary women from what was then the Junior Welfare League—now the Junior League of Sarasota—an
all-volunteer group who asked a simple but powerful question: How do we help families with very young children so parents can work and support themselves? Their answer was to establish the Sarasota Day Nursery. That core mission hasn’t changed. We serve children well, we serve families well and we empower families—just as those women envisioned when they founded us in May of 1961. What has changed is the world around us. Life today is far more complex. Take social media, for example—the interconnectedness brings both opportunities and challenges. And when you think about Sarasota County today compared with when I moved here 47 years ago, the pace and complexity of life have grown dramatically. Now imagine navigating that world as a single parent—which describes nearly two-thirds of our families— trying to succeed economically,
sometimes pursuing education at the same time, while raising a very young child. In addition, early care and education have become significantly more expensive. Families certainly faced challenges in 1961, but the complexity today is different. We see single-parent households, grandparents raising grandchildren and rising expectations for what young children need to succeed. Because of that, our program has continually evolved. We adapt our planning every year— often month by month—to meet emerging needs. Over time, we’ve grown both broader and deeper in the services we provide. For example, we now have family advocates—what many organizations would call case managers—who work directly with families. When I first came to Children First, there were six staff members in those roles. Today we have eleven, all with
A CONVERSATION WITH PHILIP TAVILL, PRESIDENT & CEO OF CHILDREN FIRST
bachelor’s or master’s degrees in social work and additional family development credentials. We also provide on-site train-the-trainer certification. The level of professionalism, training and expertise has increased tremendously. Another example is our Families First Institute, which provides parenting and family-strengthening courses. It began in 1999 with our first Nurturing Dads class. Today, we o er programs for fathers, budgeting classes, English as a second language and parenting education. Each of these programs grew out of the same process: identifying a need, determining how best to meet it and partnering with others when appropriate to connect families with the right resources.
was created by Sarasota-based author, trainer and family mediator Mark Perlman, who worked closely with us to develop the program. At most parenting classes, you see a lot of moms—which is wonderful—but we realized that engaging fathers sometimes requires a space designed specifically for them.
OVER YOUR 30 YEARS OF LEADERSHIP, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST PIVOTAL MOMENTS OR DECISIONS THAT SHAPED CHILDREN FIRST INTO THE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED ORGANIZATION IT IS TODAY?
TAVILL When I first came to Children First, we began serving children at age two. Even then, there was significant demand for infant and toddler care in Sarasota County. I told the board that hired me, “This is something we’re going to have to consider seriously.” That was February 26, 1996. Then, in June of that same year—on a Wednesday—the Department of Children and Families called and said, “We’re closing a daycare where we have six foster babies because the quality is so poor. Can you take them?” We said yes. We opened the following Monday with those six babies. Sta and community members brought cribs from their attics and garages. We cleaned everything up and got ready. It was a pivotal moment for us. Today, about half of the children we serve are under the age of three. We accept babies as young as six weeks old—we begin working with families during pregnancy. Expanding our services from expectant families through age five was a major turning point. Another pivotal step was launching our Nurturing Dads class in 1999. The curriculum
Here’s a quick story. At the end of the first session, we’d say, “All right, guys, huddle up so we can say goodbye.” We did this with a football-style huddle, which felt comfortable for the guys. Then we’d say, “Okay, now we’re doing a hug.” At first, everyone sti ened up a bit. But by week five or six, those same guys were hugging each other goodbye without hesitation. We had created a safe space where men could learn how to become better fathers—whether they were already good dads who wanted to become great, not-so-good dads who wanted to be better or maybe they were becoming fathers or stepfathers for the first time. A third milestone came in 2003, when we were first designated a nationally recognized Program of Excellence by the National Head Start Association. Passing federal monitoring is one thing, but this review goes much deeper—it’s like being turned upside down and shaken by the ankles to see what falls out of your pockets. It’s exhaustive, but exhilarating. Fewer than one percent of Head Start programs nationwide receive that recognition.
slide, where kids go to school for 10 months, get a couple months o and come back forgetting how to read and write. You literally can experience an overnight slide in these very di cult circumstances. The critical nature of engaging the family, especially those families that have the highest risk factors or the most challenges, is that we are taking this comprehensive,
“EVERY
with you on, but what would you like to do given the opportunity?” And oftentimes, for our families, nobody’s necessarily asked them about that aspirational goal. We get answers like, “I didn’t finish high school. I need to get a GED, but math is killing me,” and we’ll find a volunteer who’s a math tutor to help them. And the reason we’re doing it here is not to duplicate anyone else;
holistic approach to working with that entire family–that’s the parent or guardian, the older siblings, sometimes the auntie, the uncle or the grand-parents who are involved—and we are incrementally working to help that family become more independent, more self-sucient, not just economically, but in how they function as a family. We embrace the family and have them engage with family advocates, take courses and they are all elevating how they function as a family.
CHILDREN FIRST IS KNOWN FOR ITS WHOLE-FAMILY APPROACH TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND FAMILY STRENGTHENING. WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT TO ADDRESS NOT JUST THE CHILD, BUT THE ENTIRE FAMILY UNIT? TAVILL The child’s primary environment is the home. The child comes to us for the day, which could be 6, 7 or 8 hours. We do a lot of work, and if that child goes back home and this is a family that’s struggling economically and has risk factors, everything we do that day literally could be for nothing. Most of us are familiar with what’s called the summer
CHILD IS BORN WITH POTENTIAL, BUT NOT EVERY CHILD IS BORN WITH OPPORTUNITY. IT’S OUR JOB TO PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERY CHILD’S POTENTIAL.”
— Philip Tavill
CAN YOU SHARE SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW CHILDREN FIRST REMOVES BARRIERS THAT MIGHT OTHERWISE PREVENT PARENTS FROM ACCESSING EDUCATION, JOB TRAINING OR PARENTING RESOURCES?
if you’re coming in to drop o your child and you’ve got transportation issues or work, we can accommodate your schedule here. We can work with you. This is like a second home for families.
TAVILL We work with many di erent partners who are doing great work. Women’s Resource Center, for example, is a wonderful organization. We can go through that list and talk about our many partners, but I’ll tell you what we’re doing inhouse. This is what we’ve developed over the years, through our family advocates, including our vocational family advocate. We’re talking with families about goal-setting. If you’re economically vulnerable, if you’re living in poverty, it can be really hard to think about aspirational goals. But when somebody’s sitting down with you and saying, “Hey, let’s take a few minutes to think about not only what some of your challenges are that I could work
WHEN YOU LOOK TOWARD THE FUTURE, WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR CHILDREN FIRST OVER THE NEXT DECADE? TAVILL For the organization, our work is really driven by two things. First is the quality of our services. The second driver is unmet need, which really falls into two areas. The first connects to the changing population we serve. When I started here 30 years ago, the Spanish-speaking population among our families was very small. Today it’s probably around 35 percent. That shift requires us to continually adapt—to ensure we are culturally sensitive, that families feel comfortable in our environment and that we respect and reflect their cultural norms. Right now, more than 100 children from birth to age three are on our waitlist. They may be receiving services elsewhere, but our focus is on how we expand so we can reach them. And so, a message I have for your readers, and I know there are many, is very simple. It’s an invitation. Come visit us. Come take a tour. You will leave here feeling amazing about what is happening in our community. Come see us and learn more about what we do.
wellness
SLEEPING WELL
Sleeplessness is often dismissed as a fact of modern life, but Sarasota doctors say disrupted sleep can have serious health consequences. Stephanie Churn Lubow
This page: Dr. Rabih Loutfi, Sarasota Memorial Hospital; Dr. Matthew Edlund, psychiatrist.
MOST PEOPLE CHALK UP POOR SLEEP TO STRESS, AGING OR AN OVERLY BUSY LIFE. But mounting research suggests that chronically disrupted sleep isn’t just a lifestyle issue. It’s a health issue, with far-reaching consequences for the brain, heart, metabolism, mood and even personal safety. According to the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 50 to 70 million Americans live with sleep disorders, and nearly one in three adults does not regularly get the uninterrupted sleep needed to protect long-term health. Yet many people remain undiagnosed, assuming exhaustion is something to push through rather than evaluate and treat. That disconnect is part of why sleep medicine has become an increasingly important—and multidisciplinary—field. In Sarasota, physicians across fields such as pulmonary medicine, psychiatry and even dentistry are seeing firsthand how untreated sleep problems erode their patients’ quality of life—and how effective treatment can be transformative.
wellness
Sleep is often treated as the most expendable part of one’s day. But according to Dr. Matthew Edlund, a Sarasota-based physician who practices psychiatry and sleep medicine, that mindset fundamentally misunderstands what sleep actually does.
“Sleep isn’t passive downtime,” Edlund says. “It’s rebuilding, restoring and renewing the body.” He explains that sleep is an active biological process during which the brain cycles through stages that regulate memory, metabolism, mood and immune function. When those cycles are disrupted night after night, the negative effects can appear quickly—sometimes within days. Modern life, Edlund notes, has made sustained, restorative sleep harder to come by. Anxiety levels have risen sharply in recent years, and chronic worry is one of the most reliable sleep
disruptors. “When people don’t feel safe,” he says, “they stop sleeping.” Add constant screen exposure, late-night news consumption and round-the-clock connectivity, and many people find themselves wired at precisely the moment they need to wind down.
Ironically, the growing obsession with “perfect sleep” may be making things worse. Wearable devices and sleep apps encourage people to scrutinize every metric, turning sleep into yet another performance goal. “Sleep should be as natural as breathing,” Edlund says. “When people turn it into a job or a competition, they set the conditions to really mess it up.”
For many, the line between “not sleeping well” and a true medical problem is easy to miss. Dr. Rabih Loutfi, medical director of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s recently
opened Sleep Disorder Center, says that’s one reason sleep disorders remain widely underdiagnosed. The most common condition his team sees is obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep due to collapse or blockage of the airway behind the tongue. While it’s often associated with loud snoring, its effects extend far beyond nighttime noise. “Patients don’t wake up refreshed,” Loutfi says. “They’re tired throughout the day, almost as if they’re chronically sleep deprived.”
Left untreated, sleep apnea is strongly linked to serious long-term health risks. Studies have shown higher rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke, cardiac arrhythmias and pulmonary hypertension among patients with
This page: Dr. James Cannon, Sleep Better Sarasota.
moderate to severe sleep apnea. Daytime drowsiness also increases the risk of motor vehicle accidents—an often-overlooked but potentially deadly consequence.
Age and weight are major risk factors, Loutfi notes, as changes in muscle tone and airway structure make obstruction more likely over time. The strong association between obesity and sleep apnea has also driven recent FDA approvals of GLP-1 medications for the condition. By promoting sustained weight loss, the drugs can reduce fatty tissue around the airway, decreasing obstruction during sleep, and in some patients, markedly improve or even eliminate apnea symptoms.
At the Sleep Disorder Center, patients undergo comprehensive evaluations that may include overnight sleep studies—either in a laboratory setting or at home—followed by individualized treatment plans. While continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy remains the gold standard, advances in sleep medicine have expanded options significantly, improving both comfort and long-term outcomes for patients. Sometimes the symptoms of a sleep disorder don’t look the way people expect. Dr. James Cannon, a
Sarasota dentist who specializes in dental sleep medicine at Sleep Better Sarasota, says patients frequently arrive in his office complaining of jaw pain, migraines, teeth grinding or chronic facial tension, without realizing the underlying issue may be their airway.
For patients diagnosed with mild to moderate sleep apnea—or those who cannot tolerate CPAP machines—custom oral appliances can be an effective alternative. Worn at night, the devices gently reposition the lower jaw and tongue forward to keep the airway open. Because they are small, quiet and easy to travel with, Cannon says many patients find them easier to use consistently than CPAP machines.
Sleep apnea can also present differently in women than in men, making it easier to miss. While men often stop breathing outright, women may unconsciously hold their jaw forward during sleep to keep their airway open, a compensatory habit that can lead to TMJ disorders, headaches and facial pain. Loud, chronic snoring—especially when it comes from the back of the throat rather than the nose—is another red flag. “I wish we could rename sleep apnea ‘sleep
suffocation,’” Cannon says. “That would get people’s attention, because that’s really what’s happening. The body is repeatedly pulling itself out of deep sleep to survive— often without the sleeper ever realizing it.”
Beyond individual health, the condition can put a strain on relationships. Snoring and nighttime breathing disruptions are a leading cause of “sleep divorce,” Cannon says, as partners move to separate rooms— often out of exhaustion, fear or both.
While the causes of poor sleep can be complex, the path toward better sleep is often more straightforward than people expect. The first step, all three physicians emphasize, is recognizing that chronic sleep problems are not a personal failure—nor a “normal” part of modern life to simply power through—but a medical issue worth evaluating. In Sarasota, physicians across multiple specialties are seeing what happens when their patients’ sleep is restored: better overall health, clearer thinking, steadier moods, safer driving and a renewed sense of well-being. SRQ Dr. Matthew Edlund, regenerationhealthnews.com; Dr. Rabih Loutfi, smh.com/Home/Services/sleep-disordercenter; Dr. James Cannon. sleepbettersarasota.com
MEDICAL RESOURCE | HONOREES
SARASOTA BRADENTON
LAKEWOOD RANCH
PALMETTO
NORTH PORT
VENICE
EMILY F. ARSENAULT, MD, FAAD
HONOREE | Medical & Aesthetic Dermatology
SPECIALTIES | Mohs Skin Cancer Surgery | Weight Loss & Wellness
DR. EMILY ARSENAULT, MD, FAAD, is the founder of Arsenault Dermatology and a board-certified dermatologist with over 25 years of experience. A Florida native, she was accepted into medical school before graduating high school, earning her degree from the University of Miami’s prestigious Honors Program in Medicine. She completed her dermatology training at Boston University before returning home to Florida in 2003. Dr. Arsenault built her practice on a philosophy centered on accessibility, pediatric care, and preventative skin exams using dermoscopy. She has found her calling in building a team of talented professionals who share her patient-fi rst approach. Today, she continues to advance skin health through innovative treatments and compassionate care for patients of all ages.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE. Since 2003, Arsenault Dermatology has grown to 7 convenient locations across Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, and Venice, o ering medical, surgical, and aesthetic dermatology services. Our team of 22 physicians and providers, including 3 master aesthetics injectors and 2 fellowship-trained Mohs surgeons, delivers expert, coordinated care. With an onsite Mohs surgery center and lab, we provide e cient, high-quality treatment for skin cancer. Known for combining innovation with a highly personalized approach, we consistently earn 5-star Google reviews (12,000+) and strong patient satisfaction ratings. Whether for preventative exams, advanced treatments, or cosmetic care, patients trust us to deliver results in a setting that feels professional, welcoming, and seamless.
HOW DOES YOUR PRACTICE HELP IMPROVE THE LIVES OF YOUR PATIENTS? Prevention is central to our mission. Through routine skin exams and dermoscopy, we focus on early detection and empowering patients to take an active role in their skin health. Our providers prioritize education, guiding patients on sun protection, recognizing warning signs, and building personalized skincare routines based on individual needs. Through thoughtful, one-on-one care and community outreach, we help patients understand how small, consistent actions can prevent long-term issues. This commitment to education and prevention has been the foundation of the trust we’ve built with patients for more than two decades.
WHAT DIFFERENTIATES YOUR PRACTICE? At Arsenault Dermatology, the di erence is in how care is delivered. Our fully integrated model brings together medical dermatology, skin cancer treatment, Mohs surgery, pathology, and aesthetics under one coordinated system, allowing for faster answers, fewer delays, and a more seamless patient experience. For skin cancer care, our onsite Mohs surgery and in-house lab enable real-time precision, so patients leave with clarity and confidence in their results. Just as important, we are intentional about the experience itself. We respect our patients’ time, communicate clearly, and guide each individual through their visit with a level of organization and attentiveness that is uncommon in healthcare. The result is care that is not only highly e ective, but also e cient, reassuring, and genuinely patient-centered.
ARSENAULT DERMATOLOGY
8 convenient locations throughout Lakewood Ranch, Bradenton & Venice arsenaultdermatology.com
JEREMY D. MCCONNELL, MD, FOMA
HONOREE | Sleep Medicine
SPECIALTIES | Sleep Medicine
FLORIDA SLEEP SPECIALISTS
5717 21st Ave. West | Bradenton, FL 34209
1215 S. East Ave | Suite 301 | Sarasota, FL 34239
941.792.8383 | sleepspecialists.com
JEREMY D. MCCONNELL, MD, MFOMA is the Chief Executive O cer and Founder of Florida Sleep Specialists and Discover Health Obesity Medicine Clinics in Bradenton and Sarasota, Florida. Dr. McConnell is board certified in family medicine, obesity medicine, and sleep medicine. Dr. McConnell is the recipient of the 2019 Obesity Medicine Association Clinician of the Year award and is a master fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association. In the field of Sleep Medicine, Dr. McConnell is an in-demand speaker and Key Opinion Leader, serving on the advisory boards of leading pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers.
ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE. Our goal is to provide the highest level of evidence-based care to promote the safety, welfare, and well-being of our patients and to provide specialist support to their physicians. We believe in personal, patient-centered care, in which patients take an active role in their health and healthcare. We pride ourselves in taking time to explain things so patients can easily understand and comply with their treatment. We have found that the treatment of sleep disorders is particularly gratifying because of the vast improvement in the quality of life that many patients experience.
WHAT SETS YOUR PRACTICE APART? Six highly-trained and qualified healthcare providers solely dedicated to the treatment of sleep disorders. We are at the forefront of research and developing treatment options due to our close collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and device makers. Our practice is uniquely positioned to provide our patients with the best treatment options, the most well-trained providers and caring sta in the region.
