Good News Friday: Good Deeds - February 21, 2014
A $100,000 award from the Selby Foundation will cover capital and equipment costs for 10 new Education Foundation Digital Learning Labs that provide students in Sarasota County access to computers, the Internet and digital literacy training, to open this year. A Lab opened last Wednesday at the Sarasota Housing Authority in partnership with the We R 4 Kids after-school program. The first Education Foundation Digital Learning Lab was established in April 2013 to aid Laurel Civic Association’s after-school, weekend and summer programs; now, a total of 30 labs are under way or are planned for other youth-serving sites such as YMCA’S Triad program, Sarasota County Libraries, Boys and Girls Clubs, Alta Vista’s A+ Adventure Club and 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
With a $5,000 grant from the Stroke Foundation, Sarasota Memorial’s Comprehensive Stroke Center has been able to open its new outpatient Secondary Stroke & TIA Prevention Clinic, as well as provide support for an educational neuroscience summit to be hosted in May, which is National Stroke Month. Sarasota Memorial CEO Gwen MacKenzie and Mauricio Concha, M.D., stroke neurologist and medical director of the hospital’s Stroke Program, recognized Arthur Ancowitz, M.D., president of the Stroke Foundation, for its generosity at the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board meeting on Feb. 18.
InStride Therapy, a nonprofit hippotherapy center in the Southeastern United States, announced The Mane Event fund raiser, which takes place at 6 p.m. next Saturday, March 1, at InStride’s facility, 1629 Ranch Road in Nokomis. Tickets are $125 and net proceeds will fund and expand the company’s therapeutic programs for children and adults with special needs. Visit InStrideTherapy.org or call (941) 412-9333 for information.
Habitat for Humanity Inc. presents Fore the Love of Habitat, a golf outing that helps Habitat provide for families, taking place at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, April 14, at Laurel Oak Country Club in Sarasota. The fee for each golfer is $150 and all proceeds will be matched one-to-one through Habitat’s Stretch to Build it Campaign. Sponsorship opportunities are available. Visit habitatsrq.org or contact Francine Diemer at (941) 487-5518.
The Patterson Foundation presented Tidewell Hospice with a $10,000 gift in honor of the organization’s Tidewell Honors program, which supports veterans and their families, during Tidewell’s Compassion in Caring luncheon that took place on Feb. 14.
Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation, Inc.’s board of trustees approved grants totaling $3,373,959, bringing the total of grants made in the fiscal first quarter to more than $3.6 million. These grants provided for renovations and upgrades to the hospital’s seven pods, new equipment, research and staffing.