Grant Will Help Power Community Events at Venice Airport

Gulf Coast recently awarded a $20,000 leveraged grant to the Suncoast Foundation for Handicapped Children for a project to increase the electrical capacity at the Venice Municipal Airport Festival Grounds.

With support already secured from the City of Venice, Florida Power & Light, and others, the Suncoast Foundation will coordinate improvements that effectively double the power available at the festival grounds. The grounds are home to the group’s signature annual fundraiser, the Suncoast BBQ and Bluegrass Bash, as well as other community events throughout the year.

Don Fisher, board director of the Suncoast Foundation, credits the grant with putting the electrical improvement project over the top for completion well before next April’s Suncoast BBQ and Bluegrass Bash. “Gulf Coast Community Foundation is the reason that this is happening,” he said. He was quick to add that the ultimate beneficiaries will be the community members supported by funds raised from his group’s and other nonprofit events held at the airport.

The Suncoast Foundation provides and maintains rent-free facilities for organizations serving children, as well as teens, adults, and their families, with disabilities. “Over 8,000 individuals currently utilize our facilities,” said Fisher. Buildings on the Suncoast Foundation’s campuses in Sarasota, Venice, and North Port are occupied by Special Olympics, The Florida Center for Early Childhood, The Haven, Children First, Sertoma Speech Clinic, and Loveland Center. Fisher estimates the Suncoast Foundation provides $750,000 in free rent to these groups annually.

Launched in 2010, the annual Suncoast BBQ and Bluegrass Bash has raised about $350,000 in support of the Suncoast Foundation’s mission, including more than $85,000 from last year’s event. The barbecue competition and bluegrass music festival is billed as the largest of its kind in southwest Florida. It is “on the cusp of being a regionally recognized event,” according to Fisher. “The electrical improvements will help us attract marquee barbecue pitmasters from the southeastern U.S.” In turn, he said, that will lead to more support for local children and families.

“Gulf Coast has supported the Suncoast BBQ Bash from the time it was just an idea of Don’s,” said Jon Thaxton, senior vice president for community investment at Gulf Coast. “We know how big a difference the Suncoast Foundation makes in the lives of some of our community’s most vulnerable families. This project builds the capacity and sustainability of that support, while also helping many other nonprofits that use the airport’s event grounds.”

The $20,000 grant comes from the Community Health Endowment Fund at Gulf Coast. Other companies providing in-kind services for the project include Bright Future Electric, Beechwood Builders, and Strayer Surveying and Mapping.