From our family to yours, we’d like to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year! From the bottom of our heart, we want to thank you for your support all year long – from supporting our fundraisers to your continued patronage, we are beyond thankful for all the local love this year! Lots of blessings this year that we wish to share with you… we were so honored and proud to accept the following awards and recognitions in 2019:
Amanda received the PACE Spirit for Leadership Award – one of three Board Awards for the entire state at the annual PACE All About Girls Summit.
Bradenton Kiwanis Foundation Bert South Philanthropic Award – awarded annually by the Bradenton Kiwanis Foundation to honor an individual, family, or group who best reflects the Foundation’s philanthropic values.
We were so honored to receive this award named after a man that did so much for our community. It also came with a $10,000 cash prize which we in turn split between PACE Center for Girls here in Manatee County and for funding our own Dive Into Reading program. Thanks so much to the Bradenton Kiwanis Club for thinking of us for this award!
Leadership Florida Impact Award for Dive Into Reading – awarded to a business or nonprofit organization that has created a specific project or body of work whose impact is currently transforming the future of its region or beyond and has the potential to transform Florida as a whole.
Truer words have never been written before… we truly do feel out Dive Into Reading program can expand throughout all of Florida and help teach all children to read and understand reading better and better. It is ALL of our responsibility to ensure all children are reading at grade level. We’re so fortunate to have so many guests helping us in Manatee and Sarasota Counties.
John was completely speechless… and for those of you who know John, that says A LOT! When we received this award from Leadership Florida, and organization John joined 10 years ago in The Pineapple Nation, we were so impressed with their mission and accomplishments in helping KEEP Florida so awesome, in spite of the fact they accepted John as a member… as well as Amanda through their Education Program last year. As Groucho Marx said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.”
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association Marketing + Operations Summit – John emceed the entire two-day event and Amanda was a panelist on the Serving Philanthropy panel where she shared our philanthropic mission.
Manatee Tiger Bay Club Business Leadership Award – awarded to community advocates.
Amanda and John were humbled to receive the Inaugural Pat Glass Leadership Award for Business Leadership alongside so many wonderful communities luminaries in other categories. Commissioner Pat Glass was the founder of the Manatee Tiger Bay Club, and Amanda was honored to be on that board 10 years ago… Tiger Bay honored Pat for her vision and leadership with a Lifetime Achievement Award, which was incredible to witness!
And while some of the recent awards that are a fit frag-i-le (it’s French) may have been accidentally broken before John and Amanda got them home for display… this one, we put in a box before we left the banquet so it didn’t break… we’re all learning!
Thank you, to all who made 2019 so special. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Enjoy Kwanza, and Happy Festivus for the Restuvus! Bring on 2020!
