In Sarasota’s Newtown neighborhood, Valerie Buchand’s name surfaces whether the topic is the annual Big Momma Collard Greens Festival or late-night city commission meetings. For more than a decade, she has been both agitator and organizer: president of Newtown Nation, a 25-year leader of the Sarasota Housing Authority’s Agency-Wide Resident Council and a familiar voice at public hearings.

Born and raised in Newtown, Buchand, 69, founded Newtown Nation in 2015 to address food insecurity and community empowerment, and she has represented residents of  public housing communities through the resident council. In 2019, she opposed county redistricting maps that shifted Newtown out of its longtime district. She also led grassroots efforts around the 2020 census and voter turnout, planting signs, handing out pamphlets and urging neighbors to participate to secure fair representation and federal resources. Away from politics, she helps preserve the historic Woodlawn and Galilee cemeteries—home to many of Sarasota’s earliest Black families—as links to the community’s past. Recently, she completed training with the Neighborhood Resilience Project to become a “Neighborhood Expert” and part of a larger effort to make Newtown a place where residents define and lead their own priorities.

You grew up in Newtown. What do you remember most about that time, and how does it influence the way you lead today?

“Growing up in Newtown, I remember 27th Street—what they call Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way now. That’s where all our businesses were. We had Town Hall Restaurant and Tavern, Miss May’s Diner, Mr. Humphrey’s grocery store, Can’s Market at Osprey and 27th, where the [Sarasota Memorial Clinic] is now, and a drugstore. There was a doctor’s office, a laundromat, an ice cream shop and a barber. All businesses we could go to, because we weren’t welcome downtown. We had what we needed back then. The community was like family. If you didn’t have money, you could get groceries on credit and pay later. There was trust and connection.”

Why did you start Newtown Nation?

“A few of us started meeting because we wanted to make a difference. We wanted people to be healthier, to bring back a thriving Newtown where families could live, play and raise their kids with pride. The City of Sarasota had labeled our area a ‘food desert,’ and more than once, funds meant for our neighborhood went somewhere else. We started our own farmers market, which partners with SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], which has recently faced massive federal cuts due to policy shifts, to make healthy produce more affordable. We started the annual Big Mamma’s Collard Greens Fest, too.”

In 2019, you helped lead opposition to redistricting in Sarasota County to prevent the loss of Newtown’s voting power in county commission races. You lost that battle in a federal lawsuit. Looking back, what did that experience teach you about local politics and power?

“It showed me what I already knew: People with money and power control what happens. Citizens spoke up, but leaders didn’t listen. When it was remapped, it was wrong, unethical. We had to go along with that. We didn’t have a say.”

Why are you involved with the historic Black Woodlawn and Galilee cemeteries?

“Black people weren’t allowed to be buried in the Rosemary Cemetery on Central Avenue. Woodlawn and Galilee are important because people sit by a tomb and find comfort. So [a group of community members] would clean them up. We got attorneys, made [the group] official and formed the volunteer Galilee and Woodlawn Cemeteries Restoration Task Force in 2000. This past year, through Newtown Nation, we hired two or three people to help clean them up.”

Are Newtown residents concerned about gentrification?

“We were moved from Overtown [a historic Black neighborhood now called the Rosemary District] into Newtown, and now we’re fighting to stay here. It feels like they keep trying to move us further and further away. People’s property taxes are going up, but income isn’t. Older folks never had much, and when they’re offered a small sum for their home, it’s a bad offer, but they’ve never seen that kind of money before. We’re concerned about losing space and real estate. I wish Newtown Nation had the money to help folks in foreclosure so we could save their homes. We don’t see investment here.”

If you could design Sarasota’s future over the next 20 years, what would it look like?

“It would be a community where people come together like a family. Sarasota is becoming like Naples, where the poor have been pushed out. What’s being built now is for outsiders with money made elsewhere. Even middle-income people can hardly live here. There should be rent control. We need leaders with the courage to do what’s right. People deserve stability, dignity and the ability to stay in the city they built.”

Who were the people who shaped you?

“I mostly watched my parents and elders. They had strong morals and stood on the principles of God. My mother, Estella Brown, taught me work ethic and how to be truthful. She worked very hard—she cooked and ran the kitchen at a nursing facility on 12th Street for 34 years. When she developed bone degeneration and had to retire early, she didn’t have as much income [as she had anticipated], but she kept up her family and stayed strong.”

What advice would you give a young person from Newtown who wants to follow in your footsteps?

“Be careful and read. Know the laws, because every law has an option, a loophole. If you’re going to be punished, be punished for doing what’s right. We need people willing to fight, not for profit, but for justice. That’s what I would tell young people: Be ready for the challenge, but do right. Always do right.”

What do you want Sarasota leaders—politicians, philanthropists, developers—to hear from Newtown residents?

“Stop using the same people to speak for us. We haven’t been fully represented. Our neighborhoods get sacrificed while others are prioritized.”

What gives you hope and drives you to keep going, even when the work is hard?

​​”As I lead, I try to treat my neighbor like I want to be treated. I start my day after my prayers and move in the direction I need to move in. I help people because they’re people, not numbers. My faith holds me up. Being wealthy or poor doesn’t define me; my faith does. I believe in redemption and forgiveness. Even when people do me wrong, I go back for more because I believe a way will be made. That’s all I have to stand on: truth.”