Pictured: Mary Tavarozzi (center) with Wes Roberts, SRQ Media Vice President and Executive Publisher (left) and Arthur Lerman of JFCS. Photo taken by Wyatt Kostygan.

Each year, SRQ Media invites the community to nominate individuals with hearts of giving who have made a significant impact with local nonprofit organizations — from volunteers and board members to individual staff members and donors. This year, attendees were thrilled to be together as we recognized our annual Good Hero Philanthropic Award recipients at the SB2: Philanthropic Agenda Luncheon and Good Hero Philanthropic Awards Luncheon on Thursday, December 9, 2021 at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota. In the coming weeks, we are happy to feature each of the twelve honorees in our Wednesday Philanthropic edition of SRQ Daily.

The Good Hero we are featuring  today is described as being “the glue that has held ALSO Youth together over the past two years." When COVID hit, ALSO, like many organizations, was forced—to shut it's doors. Shortly after, the Executive Director and all the staff left except for one part-time employee.  All that remained of this organization that had been so active in the Sarasota community for almost thirty years, was the Board of Directors, led by Mary Tavarozzi. Mary took control and kept ALSO Youth afloat by running Zoom meetings, planning virtual fundraising events, repairing the center in Manatee County so that it would be ready in time to re-open, cleaning the Sarasota Center, running financials for the organization, and a million other things without which, the organization would not have survived. Mary led the team to find a new Executive Director and to hire a new staff when the centers were ready to re-open. The impact she has had is incomparable. Mary, thank you for leading the way to this organization’s next chapter.

Pictured: Mary Tavarozzi (center) with Wes Roberts, SRQ Media Vice President and Executive Publisher (left) and Arthur Lerman of JFCS. Photo taken by Wyatt Kostygan.