Sophia LaRusso

By Ryan G. Van Cleave | Photo by Kelly Kearns

When Sophia LaRusso and her husband were living in New York, they remained busy, busy, busy. He was a hospital administrator at Bellevue Hospital Center and she was the Director of Operations for an international not-for-profit organization. Go to work in the city. Head to Grand Central Station for the train back home in Westchester County. Care for the house and family. Repeat.

That’s the type of schedule that doesn’t allow for much else, Sophia admits.

So, when they moved to Sarasota to live full-time in 1994—after owning a house and being part-time residents here since ’88—the first thing they decided? Get involved in the community. They came for the arts and culture, as well as the weather, but the welcoming and philanthropic nature here drew them in and created opportunities to get involved right from the start. And they luckily met people who helped connect them—her with the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, where Sophia first served as Chair of the Grants Committee and subsequently on the Board for ten years, including chairing it for two.

“When I went off the Board,” explains Sophia, “I became a Community Foundation volunteer consultant, meaning I was given an opportunity to work with multiple boards of nonprofit organizations over the years.” Her work primarily focused on two areas: strategic planning and board development. “I’ve worked with so many people, so many organizations—it’s hard to say there’s a favorite!”

Talk with her for a moment, though, and you’ll quickly realize the deep emotional connection she has with Pines of Sarasota, a not-for-profit rehabilitation and senior care community that has been a part of Sarasota for 70 years and is currently in the midst of a multimillion-dollar transformation of its campus. “My mother lived with my husband and me for 34 years before she went to the Pines at age 94,” Sophia shares. “The quality of care she received during her five years there? It allowed me to sleep at night, knowing she was in the best of hands. If you feel comfortable trusting a loved one’s well-being to a facility or organization, you owe them big time. It starts with that.”

That level of care was perhaps most evident through the attendant her mother was initially assigned. At 94, she was still independent, so she had reservations about any attendant helping, much less a male! But within a month, she was “enthralled with him,” Sophia says. She’d allow only him to take care of her—no one else! At one point, she admitted that her beloved attendant was “the son she had never had.” And that meant a lot to Sophia.

“The quality of care my mother received during her five years at Pines of Sarasota allowed me to sleep at night, knowing she was in the best of hands.”

She also appreciated the intergenerational programs they had at Pines of Sarasota, so her mother could interact with children up to age 5 who were enrolled in their day care and child learning center. Another thing Sophia appreciated? That she could come anytime—day or night—and find her mom receiving the best of care. “I was in love with the staff. They became like family to me. They were wonderful.”

Though her mom passed on after five years at the Pines, Sophia continues to support the Pines of Sarasota Foundation in a variety of ways. For ten years, she’s been a member of its Wit and Wisdom of Aging luncheon committee, which holds a major fundraiser every November. She’s been on its marketing committee and given presentations to the board as well as the Legacy Society. There’s also a plaque in its beauty parlor that’s dedicated to Sophia’s mother and a brick in her mother’s name outside the Memory Unit. Most recently, Sophia served on the search committee for the new President of the Foundation that hired Janet Ginn, this past January.

To list the organizations and groups that Sophia cares about requires a spreadsheet, thanks to her ongoing efforts and interactions that began with the Community Foundation. But she’s clearly keen on Easterseals Southwest Florida, saying that “it is a fantastic organization to work with!” She’s also a fan of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, which makes sense for someone who always has tickets for Urbanite, Asolo Rep, Florida Studio Theatre, and so many others. The Westcoast Black Theatre, too, is one she holds dear, as much for the quality of the troupe’s musical and dramatic performances as the fact that her late husband of 43 years helped to provide theater space for them to get started.

Thanks to her three-days-a-week tennis exercise and the different organizations she belongs to, Sophia runs into all kinds of people. She’s amazed when she learns—as she did with someone a few weeks back—that they’ve never been to a local theater show. Leave it to Sophia, though, to sell them on the idea of attending the 10-Minute Play Festival in May at the Asolo/FSU Center for Performing Arts’ Cook Theater. “10-minute plays are great,” she adds. “At the age I am now, that’s about my attention span!”

To chat with Sophia is to quickly realize that she wasn’t joking about getting involved in the community when she arrived in Sarasota back in 1994. Since then, she’s had her own TV show. She served on the Board of the Mental Health Community Center for several years. She was a member of the Tourist Development Grants Panel and chaired the Tourist Developmen Policy Committee of the Arts and Cultural Alliance which gives grants on a competitive basis to arts organizations from tourist tax dollars.

But it all circles back to the 25-acre campus of Pines of Sarasota with its 240+ residents and 400+ employees, which clearly has a dear place in Sophia’s heart. She notes how a few might think negatively about it because it used to be the Sarasota Welfare Home, first operated by the Kiwanis Club of Sarasota. “But they are STILL the Sarasota ‘welfare home’—a place where love lives and residents’ welfare is still of utmost importance. They’re treated with dignity and respect.” And Sophia remains impressed with the new leadership at Pines of Sarasota.

While Foundation President Ginn and President/CEO Mike Ward both have under a year of service there, Sophia sees how they think collaboratively and strategically about the Pines along with the members of the organization’s Corporate and Foundation Boards of Directors. How to change it. How to renovate and improve its programs and services. How to keep differentiating themselves from other senior care facilities that might be beautiful and big, but ultimately don’t have the high quality of employees that makes all the difference. Most importantly, Pines of Sarasota remains steadfast to its mission to provide residents with a place built to accommodate their changing needs while free from worry about outliving their financial resources.

“At some point, I’ll be ready to move into the Pines myself,” Sophia says. “And I know they’ll be there—and be ready—for me.”

For more information on Pines of Sarasota, please visit www.pinesofsarasota.org or call 941.365.0250.

See more of our stories surrounding the Pines of Sarasota here.