Lifting Families Together

By Julie Milton | December 2024

While most of us think of Sarasota County for its beautiful Gulf beaches, incredible waterfront properties, boating, and top-notch arts and culture, there is a vulnerable side to our county that many of us do not ever see or know. This vulnerable side includes people and families who struggle to live above the poverty line, with their despair and resignation likely carried from generation to generation. 

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County’s 2Gen approach centers on family wellbeing, empowering families with paths to educational success and economic prosperity that passes from generation to generation.  The 2Gen approach intentionally and simultaneously works with children and the adults in their lives together. Strategies that center the whole family as an integrated unit empower families to disrupt intergenerational cycles of poverty and find paths to educational success and economic prosperity that passes from one generation to the next. 

The Foundation’s recent 2Gen Report provides well-being indicators for Sarasota, including insight into our economic prosperity, early childhood education, K-12 education, postsecondary pathways, health, including mental health, and social capital.  You can find a complete copy of the report on its website: cfsarasota.org/2GenSummit.  

Here are some of the 2Gen Report findings:

• More than one-third of Sarasota County households live below the ALICE threshold, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed
• A quarter of all Sarasota County residents over age 16 living in poverty are employed
• One out of three households in Sarasota County are rent-burdened
• Half of students attending Sarasota County schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch
• More than one in six adults in Sarasota County do not have health insurance
• Half of all middle and high school students in Sarasota County report feeling chronically sad or depressed

If this is the first time you are reading these stats, you are probably in disbelief.  We think of Sarasota as a wealthy community, which it is, but it is not without a human underbelly. 

A healthy and strong community depends on the generosity and involvement of its citizens.  There is no better time than now to help bring these stats in a better direction.  Not sure where to start? 

On the Community Foundation of Sarasota County website, you can find The Giving Partner (cfsarasota.org/nonprofits/the-giving-partner), a non-profit database of over 700 charitable organizations from which you can learn about an organization’s mission, how it is making a difference, its programs, leadership, financial health and more. It is a great tool to help you make informed charitable decisions.  

Want to help a person or family in need this holiday season?  With rising rents, a greater aging population, skyrocketing childcare costs, many families are struggling. I encourage you to visit Community Foundation’s website and learn how you can donate to Season of Sharing, a 25-year strong donation campaign to help those on the economic edge with immediate basic needs. Since its inception in 2000, Season of Sharing has raised more than $42 million to help individuals and families in Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.

As Community Foundation President & CEO Roxie Jerde says, “I am proud of this initiative and all that it does for our community and says about our community. Here, neighbors look out for neighbors, and people step up to provide a little sunshine for someone else’s stormy day.”