All Star Children’s Foundation Founders Graci & Dennis McGillicuddy Are Recognized With Key to the City

 April 23, 2021 – Sarasota

All Star Children’s Foundation’s founders Graci and Dennis McGillicuddy were recognized by the City of Sarasota on April 5, 2021, for their longstanding commitment, philanthropy, and activism to protecting vulnerable children, especially those in the foster care system. Sarasota Mayor Hagen Brody presented the couple with a key to the city, proclaiming that they have “worked tirelessly to prevent child abuse and expand treatment and care for our community’s most vulnerable children. In recent years, the McGillicuddys have focused on the connection between childhood trauma and long-term mental health. Today, we recognize the special impact the McGillicuddys’ leadership, compassion, tenacity and care has made on the lives of countless children in our city and the broader community.”

Graci McGillicuddy says that they were “honored to receive this recognition and taken completely by surprise! We are inspired to do even more in our work to be a voice for our most vulnerable children, as we pursue our mission to create a brighter future for children in foster care and for abused children around our community, state, and nation. Thank you to the City Commission and all those who are on this journey with us to make the world a safer place for children.”

Dennis McGillicuddy says that the recognition is especially poignant since April is officially Child Abuse Prevention month. 

“The work being done at All Star has a focus on the relationships with foster children, foster parents, and the biological families to interrupt the cycle of abuse and neglect. We are incredibly grateful to the City of Sarasota for its ongoing support of All Star’s mission.”

All Star’s “Campus of Hope and Healing” includes the All Star Children’s Center, where trauma-focused clinical services are offered, six foster family homes that provide children, ages 0-18, with a nurturing, family-style home environment and comprehensive, trauma-sensitive treatment, a clubhouse which includes a tutoring lab, two playgrounds, an organic vegetable garden, an outdoor movie theater, and a butterfly garden. At All Star siblings are kept together, and parents and caregivers are offered a range of services. Children receive evidence-based interventions that not only help them cope with trauma they have experienced, but strengthen and build supportive, safe, and healing relationships with the adults in their lives. They are also offered enrichment activities that build competencies and resilience. All Star also empowers foster parents with the skills required to deal with the challenges of traumatized children who have been separated from their biological families. And the All Star team equips biological parents with the skills they need to build healthy relationships with their children.  All Star also serves children in the region’s child welfare system and their families.

For more information, visit www.allstarchildrensfoundation.org